


Winchester Iron

by CaptainMercy42



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Gym, Human! Cas, M/M, Slow Burn, Veteran Dean, a my dinner with andre fic, a talking fic, awesome analogies, could be a sexy fic, eventual paint-ball, i'm not dating myself i have eclectic taste, kind of gay panic, not a stab you in the feels fic, occasionally assbutt sam, philosophy of sexual attraction, professor becky rosen, thinking smut is necessary to make up for lack of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-05 08:45:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainMercy42/pseuds/CaptainMercy42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Dean owns a gym and talks a lot and Sam is still in college and Cas is an EMT.  Then there's some camping and movie nights and manly stuff and then manly sex and then everyone matures in their own way and Dean gets addicted to Dr. Sexy fan fiction.  Also, human sexuality professor, Becky Rosen.  </p><p>NOW COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This baby is CUM PLETE. Do you know how exciting that is? It's exciting.  
> Thanks for reading along, WIP'ers.  
> New readers: Thanks for taking a gander. Your comments will help me edit, considering this took over a year to write. Critique away!

Dean Winchester stared at the dilapidated house.  It sat far from the road, tall but smothered by two oversized pines.  The paint was peeling and bits of the roofing looked worn.  He would have guessed it was uninhabited, or haunted, if it weren’t for the old blue pick-up in the driveway.  

He was a bit uneasy, but conviction forced him to approach the house and knock on the dark, oak door.  He heard a shuffling inside, and perhaps traces of grumbling, before the door swung inward to reveal a dark-haired, disheveled man wearing plaid, flannel pajama bottoms and a wife-beater.  Not exactly what he had been expecting.

“Uh, hi.  Sorry to … wake you?”  Dean made a display of checking his watch.  It was 2:30 PM.

The man blinked as the afternoon sun punched him in the face.  It was then that Dean noticed his eyes - bleary, yet simultaneously a crystalline blue- and familiar.  Familiar?  He tried not to stare.  He tried to look at the floor, but he got tied-up somewhere around the guy’s fit core.  Had he seen him at the gym?  No, he kept a pretty accurate mental record of who showed up at his gym.  There weren’t a lot of people left there he’d call strangers.

“Can I help you?”  The words slid out of the man’s throat like square tires rolling down a hill of broken glass.  They managed the descent, but complained the whole way.

Dean snapped back to reality.  The eyes were piercing him now, a bit aggressively.

“Yeah.  Does Castiel Novak live here?”

“Yes.”  The gruffness in his voice lingered past his opening question.  He squinted his eyes at Dean, which seemed to concentrate their force, the way decreasing the diameter of a pipe increases water pressure.

“Okay, well I’m here to talk to... her?”  

This visit was a bit impromptu, but it was something Dean had wanted to do for a while.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t done much prep work before setting out to find and thank his mysterious benefactor for his free education.  He’d simply gotten sick of looking at the name and the address he was supposed to be sending the thank-you card to.  A card of thanks?  It seemed so impersonal.  Dean originally guessed that Castiel Novak was some rich, old broad who wanted to impress her friends with all the recognition she could get from generously giving scholarships to veterans.  But then he had driven by the house and seen its disrepair.  This lady could have used a groundskeeper, but instead somehow Dean got a fully paid for business degree.

The man tilted his head and squinted again, but this time a smile graced his mouth for split second.  “I am Castiel Novak.”

“Oh. Well you’re not what I pictured.”

“Well you’re exactly like I imagined.”  Castiel Novak’s voice was sarcasm’s muscle car.

“Really?”

Dean watched as Castiel’s eyes flicked from his face for a moment.  They went distant, then returned.

“No.  I don’t know who you are.”  Despite this, his curiosity wasn’t letting him make any moves to shut the door or end this exchange.

“I’m Dean Winchester.  I just graduated from college, thanks to a full scholarship from a Castiel Novak.  And I keep getting these alumni letters asking for money, and when I bother to send them $20 I get fifty more letters thanking me for my donation.  So I realized it was about time I thank Castiel Novak for my free education.  I got your address from the school, but I couldn’t just write a letter.

“You have a four year degree, but you couldn’t send simple thank you?  I guess I made a sound investment.”

Dean looked at his hands and played with his keys, gently shaking his head as he whispered through a smile that he couldn’t quite explain.

“Kind of a dick.”

“If I say, ‘you’re welcome,’ will you let me go back to sleep?”

“Dude, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon.”

“My shift ended at 6 this morning.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m an -” there was an almost imperceptible pause, like a handsaw sticking momentarily in a knot - “fireman.”

Dean breathed out through his nose and let his hands fall to his sides.  The whole situation confused him.  Castiel Novak was not a kind and wealthy old lady with an addiction to philanthropy.  Castiel Novak was a fireman’s calendar Mr. November (albeit a little on the lean side as calendar guys go) with an oversized, shitty-looking house.  

“Awesome. Well look,  I came here all ready to flash some pretty smiles and spend a quality afternoon with some nice old widow.  I am thoroughly unprepared for this -” he gestured up and down towards Castiel.  “I guess-  I guess just thanks, man.”

Castiel sighed inwardly at the finality of Dean’s gratitude.  It left no more openings for repartee or snide remarks.  He moved his body away from the edge of the door where he had been leaning.

“You are welcome, Dean Winchester.  I hope everything works out for you.”

“Yeah.”  Dean was squinting now.  Where the hell did Castiel Novak, the heroic firefighter get $30,000 to send a guy who couldn’t be that much younger than himself to school?  “Right.”

He turned on his heel, and sauntered down the crooked front steps.  He didn’t hear Castiel move.  He fought the urge to check if he was watching him leave.  What excuse did he have for turning around if he were?  Thinking, thinking... He found one, and swiveled around.  His suspicions were correct.  Castiel’s steely gaze had followed him out.

“I just became part-owner of a gym, uh, Winchester Iron.  It’s downtown towards the warehouse district.  Firemen work out, right?  I could make you an honorary member for life if you want.”

“I know where that is.”  Castiel continued to watch him.

“Right. Well it’s the least I can do.  For now.”  He walked awkwardly to his baby, and slid inside, where it somehow felt cooler.  His chest loosened a little as he started her up and pulled away, aware that Castiel Novak was still standing in the doorway.

......................................................................

Winchester Iron was Dean’s pride and joy.  He had worked there for what felt like forever, starting back when it was just known as Bobby’s.  In those days it felt like a dingy garage containing a smattering of free weights and a boxing ring.  Now, thanks to Bobby’s blind faith and Dean’s determination, it was a clean, well-lit, classy establishment.  And business was booming.  After returning home from Afghanistan, Dean had gotten his bachelors degree, become full partner with Bobby, and started using his newfound business acumen to launch a wicked-cheap viral ad campaign and begin to get the permits in place to expand and build an olympic sized pool.

Dean’s second pride and joy was his little brother Sam.  The fact that Sam could work his way through college at his gym was a fierce source of pride for him.  Granted, Sammy was a genius AND a gifted athlete who couldn’t wave his hand without swatting a full scholarship to somewhere, but everyone needed money to live, and Sammy chose to make his living with his big brother.  As far as Dean was concerned, and after all the shit he’d put up with thus far, he had died and this was heaven.

Though honestly, if this were really heaven, Dean figured there’d probably be a little more female involvement than he was currently experiencing.  Having a gym full of fitness-loving babes was fun, but picking those girls up was not as easy as it sounded.  He was a hot guy, yes.  This was confirmed in people’s bitter nicknames - “pretty boy” or “Ken doll.”  And Lord knows he worked out.  But so far he could not find any not-skeevy way to pick up a girl at his gym.  Most of the girls that joined got semester-long memberships, so they were a tad younger than he was, and not really operating with the same life goals.  The less confident ones grouped together in pairs or gaggles, and they oggled the college guy gaggles and they made eyes at the boys who sat behind them in psych 101.  Dean just gagged.  The more confident girls came in with an unflinching I’ll-kick-your-ass-if-I-catch-you-watching-me-sweat attitude.  It was safer and better for business to just steer clear.  Where were the renegades?  Where were the lone wolves? If there were really equality between the sexes, then where were his female counterparts - emotionally damaged, hot girls just looking for a good time or two?

He had a feeling that the girls he was looking for were probably stuck somewhere else, dancing maybe or bartending, instead of sweating buckets spinning in the little glass room beside the yoga studio.  It was probably for the better.  Anytime he did think about asking for a number, he looked up the girl’s attendance history first to see exactly how hard it would be to potentially have to avoid her after the hook-up.  Sam had caught him doing this, and taunted him, mercilessly.  “You’re not a kid anymore, Dean,”  he chided.  “Maybe you should start thinking about hooking up with a girl more than one time.”  Sound advice, but daunting.

So maybe this wasn’t heaven yet, but he sure felt like he was on his way.  Wherever it was, it was miles ahead of the hell that was his youth.

…..............................

Sam sat at the front desk of Winchester Iron and greeted the members with a polite smile as they swiped their cards though the reader at the entrance.  He smiled extra hard at the pretty girls, with a grin that hopefully communicated how sorry he was that he was gigantic, and that deep down he was very sweet.  There were so many girls at this gym, with so many ipods.  But so far his favorite way to approach ladies was as the strong, sensitive, thinking type.  Winchester Iron was not the ideal place to strike up the insightful conversation that usually served as his one-way ticket to an amazing girlfriend.  He could hardly ever find a reason to ask a girl to take her earbuds out, and he refused to yell over whatever dance beats a potential candidate happened to be pumping into her brain.

Suddenly a raven-haired beauty appeared on the other side of the desk.  She was not wearing yoga pants, her hair was not tied up in a bumpy knot, and she was carrying a case of something - bottles of liquid, it seemed.

“Hey, can a girl get a hand?”

Sam tossed his book to the side and stood, quickly.

“Uh, sorry.  Let me get that for you.”

Sam reached over and grabbed the case, then stood awkwardly waiting for direction.

“You can put it down,”  the girl said, smiling. “It’s for you.”

“Oh.  Great.  What is it?”

“It’s the latest and greatest energy drink. Better than W2J Stringer.  Better than Bumblebeelzebub.  Better than Redboar.”  She pulled a shiny business card out of her pocket and handed it to Sam.  “I’m Ruby, by the way.”  

“I’m Sam.”  Sam reached out and shook her hand.

“I know, Sam.  It says so on your shirt.”

Sam grimaced.  He didn’t mind the Winchester Iron polo shirt he was required to wear when on duty, but the clunky “Hi My Name Is Sam” pin was not his favorite piece of flare.

“Demon Blood.” Rudy accentuated the phrase with a wave of her hand.

Sam blinked.

“Are you serious?  That’s seriously the name?”

“I know, I know.”  Ruby dropped the act for a moment and rolled her eyes.  “I didn’t name it, I just sell it.  And I sell it because it’s amazing.  Here - you have to try it.”  She cracked open one of the long, thin cans with her naturally manicured nail.

She held it forward, towards Sam’s lips.  He leaned in, then thought twice and simply took the beverage from her outstretched hand.  He tried a sip.  The surprisingly thick, red liquid slid down his throat easily.  Ruby watched him as he drank, her eyes wide and piercing, like an expectant grandmother waiting for a compliment on her secret sauce.

“Mmmm.” Sam intoned.

“I know, right?  Amazing.  Anyway, I’m the local Demon Blood rep and this case is a gift.  Pass it around, and make sure to tell your brother and his business partner if you like it.  We could get a full cooler set up in here in two weeks.”

Sam nodded and took another gulp.  It went down even easier than the first.  

“Oh, do you know Dean?”

Sam watched as Ruby let her first obviously forced smile slip on.

“I know of him.  I hear great things.”

“Good.  That’s good.”  Sam looked down at the book he had been reading.  Finally he was speaking with a cute girl who wasn’t just passing the time until her favorite treadmill opened up.  But he had nothing to say.

“So remember, you love Demon Blood.  Tell everyone.”  Ruby flashed him one last winning smile.  “And call me -” she gave him a playful wink - “when you want more.”

Sam hated to see Ruby leave, but he loved to watch her go.  He was just chugging down the rest of his drink as Dean came out of the office with a clipboard and a pen behind his ear.

“What’s that?”  He gestured towards the case of Demon Blood.

“Uh.  It’s a new energy drink that everyone’s raving about.”

“Yeah?  Is it good?  What’s it called?”

“Demon Blood.”

Dean tossed his clipboard on the counter and grinned at his big ‘ole little brother.

“Jesus Christ.  That sounds awful.”

Sam chuckled.

“It’s actually really good.”

“I’ll take your word for it, Sammy.”  He sunk down into a nearby desk chair and spun himself in a slow circle.  Sam fidgeted a bit, and picked the book he was reading back up.

“Hello, Dean.”  Castiel’s voice pierced through the hum of the gym like a dagger made of marbles. Dean and Sam both started in their chairs at the interruption.  Castiel was wearing a black suit, topped with a damp, weather appropriate raincoat.  His hair was mussed

“Castiel Novak.  You come here from a funeral?”

“Yes.”  Castiel set his teeth a bit and looked distant before turning his gaze to Sam, and then quickly back to Dean.

“You’re serious?”  Dean wasn’t exactly sure if it was a question or statement.   “I’m sorry for your loss.

“Thank you.  I didn’t know the deceased very well.  They died in my -” his voice got stuck in another knot - “a fire.”

“Ah.”  Dean turned towards Sam with an aimless gesture.  “This is my little brother Sam.  Sam, this is my... humble benefactor.”

Sam stood up and offered Castiel his hand.  As they shook Castiel sized Sam up quickly then retracted his hand and moved his gaze back to Dean..

“Well let’s get you in the system.”  Dean picked up a registration clipboard and slid it across the counter.  It was a simple questionnaire - name, address, age, emergency contact, etc.  Castiel began filling it out at the counter.  Dean opened a new member profile on the computer and began filling in the fields he already knew.  Sam fidgeted, acted as if he were reading for 30 seconds, then lowered the book to stare at Castiel.

“You seem agitated, Sam.”  Castiel asked Sam flatly, not looking up from the questionnaire.

“What?!  No.  Just buzzing from some new energy drink, thing.”  Sam sputtered and pulled the book back up in front of his face.

“You should be wary of those.”  Castiel began checking through his wallet, and produced his driver's license.

“Energy drinks?”  Castiel’s unsolicited advice caused Sam to temporarily give up his squinting and squirming.

“Yes.  Your body strives to maintain homeostasis.  Healthy energy comes from proper nutrition, hydration and rest.  The chemicals in most of those beverages provide an unnatural burst of energy, while also acting as a diuretic and sending your biology out of balance.  Often the resulting dehydration is more damaging than any of the benefits you could have possibly received from the original boost in energy.”

Castiel glanced over the completed registration and handed it to Dean, who had been listening to the lecture with an amused expression.  He swiftly began the data-entry process.

“Thanks, Castiel.  I’ll remember that when I’m forty.  But right now I have to work full-time and cram for finals.  I take energy where I can get it.  I do eat a lot of salad.”  Sam gave his best I’m-just-a-kid smile.

“I should bring you some chia seeds.”  Castiel stared at the back of his hand, as if he were concentrating on forming a mental reminder to bring Sam some chia seeds.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Dean cut in.  “Dude, you’re 38?”

“That’s correct..”

“Wow.”  Dean turned back around to finish entering Castiel’s birthdate into the computer.

“Is that surprising?”  Castiel maintained an empty face, amusement only visible in a subtle eye twinkle.

“Uh, a little.  You look great.  For your age.  I mean, I wouldn’t have guessed your age.  You look healthy.  Forty is the new 30 right?”

Sam was grinning now, watching Dean accidentally bluster into a series of what could definitely be mistaken for flirty compliments.

“Coconut oil.”  Castiel replied, succinctly.

Sam made a who-would-have-guessed face that relied heavily bottom lip.  Dean looked relieved at the overal unsexiness of the response.

“What about coconut oil?”

“It’s a clean living secret.  Age defying, both externally and ingested.”

“So you’re not born with it?” Quipped Sam.

“And it’s not Maybeline?” Dean followed.

Castiel shook his head with gravity.

“Virgin coconut oil.

Dean smiled and handed Castiel his shiny new member card. He showed him how to swipe it and gave him a pamphlet that contained information on the various classes and personal training available.  When Castiel revealed that he had brought his gym clothes with him in a bag, Dean led him off on a quick tour, pointing out the different areas and showing him to the locker rooms.  Dean returned to the desk after a couple of minutes, to find Sam deep in thought.

“You crashing from that energy drink yet?”

“No.  I’m just trying to figure out why Castiel looks so familiar.”

…................................

Sam figured out why Cas looked so familiar the following Monday, after falling off a ladder, bouncing off a wall, and landing half on the curb and half in the Winchester Iron parking lot.

Dean wasn't at work yet, but Bobby was there working with a boxing student and he called 911.  An ambulance came blaring over from Mercy General, and Castiel Novak burst forth from the back door with a look of concern.

"Hey look, it’s Cas! Wait, am I on fire too?"

Sam was conscious, but definitely not all there.  A short, dark haired woman got out of the ambulance behind Cas and began checking Sam's vitals while Cas readied the stretcher.

"You're no fireman.  You're a fire lady.   I totally support you."

Cas allowed himself a fond head-tilt before crouching down to observe Sam more closely, relieved that he was apparently in no mortal danger.

"Something you're not telling me, Clarence?" The woman drawled as she pressed her fingers expertly over Sam's abdomen.

"You have a twin named Clarence??"

"Uh. Meg, this is Sam Winchester.  I may have misled him regarding my occupation."

"THIS is the Winchester?"  Meg's eyes sparkled with interest.

"This is A Winchester."

Meg continued to feel around Sam's torso, after furrowing her brow at the sounds she had heard in her stethoscope.  Sam distracted himself with his giant brain.

"So Dean is THE Winchester. I know why I know you.  You pulled Dean out of the wreck and brought him back to life.  You checked on him once when I was awake.  And then you sent him to college. That's kinda -"

The moment of clarity was cut short when Meg poked at a broken rib and Sam's brain decided it was time for a soft reboot.

"Oops. This little moose really did a number on himself.  You gonna send him to college now too?" Meg oozed.

Cas furrowed his brow.

"He has already received a full scholarship to the local university."

"Aw. So you like 'em dumb? And male? Why am I always the exception to the rule?"

"That was over five years ago.  And you can't be an exception if there is no rule."

Meg looked up at the Winchester Iron sign as they gently loaded Sam onto the stretcher.

"Oh I think there's a rule.  You're just too mixed up to admit it.  But you're totally praying for a 'D' when you twist the stems off your apples."

They lifted Sam gently into the ambulance.

"I have no idea what you are talking about,” Cas deadpanned.  Sam had come back online a moment before, and seemed to have caught up quickly.

"D is a good letter for apple stems.  I got screwed with an S name." Castiel wrinkled his brow as Meg shushed the tree-like Winchester, stroking his bicep and urging him to lean back and take it easy.

Cas  turned to find Bobby Singer standing behind him with an odd expression.

"You sure don't look like any fireman I've seen."

Castiel had completely forgotten Bobby was there.  They had never been formally introduced, though Dean had pointed the burly, cap-sporting man out to Cas during his tour of the gym.  Cas blushed at the realization that they had had an audience since they arrived.

"Look. I'm sure you lied about your job for some weirdo reason that seemed like a good idea at the time.  I think calling Dean to tell him to meet his brother in the hospital is a fitting punishment.  I've already delivered more than my share of bad news to the kid.  You just let him know everything's taken care of here."

Bobby handed Castiel Sam's battered cell phone. Cas opened his mouth to protest, but Bobby's face of a thousand woes shut him down.  He unlocked the screen and pulled up Dean's number after a few minutes of searching and one good guess proved that Dean was listed as "Jerk" in the contacts.  The ambulance rocked through the city with lights only as Cas listened to the phone ring.

"What's up, Sammy?"

"Hello Dean.  This is Castiel Novak. Sam was in an accident, but he's going to be fine."

Dean's concern fired out of the phone like lasers made of expletives.  Cas patiently endured.

.........,.........................

Dean nearly reached the hospital before the ambulance.  He watched as they unloaded a semiconscious Sammy, stood by while Meg brazenly undressed him with her eyes, then gave Cas a significant glare when he realized firemen don't wear EMT scrubs.

The doctor let Dean stay in the room for Sam's initial examination, which confirmed Meg's poking around, and prompted them to whisk Sam away for x-rays, which Dean was not invited to.  Cas was conveniently done with his shift, and he opted to wait with Dean and explain himself before a very drugged Sammy would be returned to them, full of new info and void of tact.

"So, Cas?"

"I apologize, Dean.  I have never been a fireman.  I thought you'd be uncomfortable if I informed you of our full history."

Dean furrowed his brow as he unconsciously pulled his keys out of his pocket and began sorting through them.

"Uh. I thought you looked familiar.  Were you there at my accident?"

Cas nodded.

"So you shocked me back to life?" Another nod.   "And you knew who I was when you gave me that scholarship?  It wasn't just some random GI thing?"

Cas looked at the wall and reddened a little.

"My father has left me with more money than know what to do with.  I was just getting used to exercising my fiscal free will."

"You do good deeds like that for all your emergency patients?"

"Not to that extent, no.  But I am generally very generous."

Dean grimaced and looked away, walking towards the doors Sam had last been wheeled through.  He paced around for a minute, then sat down on a hard bench along the wall.  Cas stayed put along the opposite wall, waiting for Dean to collect his thoughts.

A doctor came through the doors and summoned Dean, letting him know the xrays were complete.  Dean thanked him and stood shifting his weight for a moment.  Cas thought about going home until he realized that despite any awkwardness between them, Dean was waiting for Cas to lead the way back to Sam's room.  No one seemed to question the EMT sticking around, so he guided Dean to his brother's bedside.


	2. Doctors, Sexy or Otherwise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas meet Sam's professor, Becky Rosen, PhD.

Dean spent most of Sam's waking hours waffling between nervous inquiries and muted reprimands.  In his early tirades the accident was everyone's fault, Sam included.  After an hour of waiting around the over-heated emergency room lobby while Sam was getting situated in a more permanent space, he had finally let the coming and going of sirens lull him into an optimistic calm.  Sammy would be fine.  They had pretty good insurance.  It wasn’t life or death.  He was definitely going to burn that ladder.  But yes, it was otherwise fine.

Cas wasn’t sure how to act, so very embedded in his element that he felt completely out of it.  He waited patiently alongside Dean and no one thought to questioned it.  The majority of the silence between the two men was comfortable, until Dean would try and ruin it by bringing up the past that Cas had been so keen to hide.

“Man, it’s not even just money.  You brought me back to life.  I owe you, like my firstborn or something.  I’m at least going to have to help you paint your house.”  Dean leaned forward over his knees, twirling his keychain absently between his fingers.  Cas’s nostrils flared.

“You are not required to try to pay me back in any way.”

“Well a friend can help you clean up your house a little, right?”

“Are you insinuating that I have purchased your friendship?”

“Hell no. It would cost more than $30,000 to get me to hang out with someone I didn’t want to hang out with.”  Dean turned on his self-loving bravado, though Cas remained as stoic as ever.

“Perhaps that is why we have never ‘hung out’.”

“Are you saying you want to hang out, Cas?  Fine.  You earned it. We’ll hang out.”  Cas opened his mouth to retort, then shut it again

“I. Yes, alright.”

“I’ll swing over to your place sometime and you can show me around.”

Cas nodded his assent with suspicion.

“We definitely have to check out the upstairs ceilings because by the looks of the roof there’s bound to be some water damage -”

“I am not listening to this.  There will be no Winchesters climbing ladders on my property.  I am reading this magazine now.  I am going to have fun with a purpose.”  He pulled a Highlights magazine in front of his face.

“What?”  Dean glared at the cover of the Highlights, scandalized.  “I always read it fun with a ‘porpoise’.Huh. There’s your tuition hard at work.  I bet you’re just full of regrets now.  No refunds, Cas.”

“Drop it, Dean.”  Cas huffed with a warning tone that did not match the pinched grin that all-out sambad in his eyes.

……………….

Sam was a patient patient, when in his right mind.  Unfortunately under the influence of opiates he was a bit more demanding.  He was propped up in his bed with one arm taped into some kind of sling, making Castiel take dictation as to what needed to be done during his convalescence, because he “didn’t trust Dean to read his own handwriting.”

"You need to get my class schedule from my bulletin board and go tell my professors what happened to me."

Cas transcribed Sam's instruction.  Dean cut in.

"Can't we just call your advisor?"

"No, Dean. I can't just trust that my advisor is going to notify all my professors right away."

"That's his job."

"Yeah well he's not that great at it.  His office smells like Dad's room.  Find my professors, Dean."

Cas acted as if he was still busy writing.  Dean put his hands on his hips and swiveled to look out the window for a second.  He reversed back to Cas abruptly.

“Yeah so, our dad was a drunk.  You probably could have guessed that.  I mean, you were there and you saw how that ended.”

Cas looked up from some doodling with wide eyes.  He tipped his head towards Dean in an understanding nod.  Sam’s eyes glazed over with annoyance as the conversation drifted away from his immediate comprehension.

“Dean, you need to find my professors.  I don’t have their numbers.  You need to tell them in person.”

Dean wiped his dry hands together and squared up.

“Okay. I’m on it, Sammy.  Hop along, Cas.”

“To Sam’s college?”

“Yeah. We’re hanging out.  I’ll get you a coffee.”

Cas closed his eyes and let out a subtle sigh of the nose before waving to Sam and following Dean into the hall.

……………………………

And so that is how Dean and Castiel found themselves trudging around Sam’s campus on a grey and misty afternoon, asking any kid without earbuds for directions to all of Sam’s professors’ offices.  They found the first four with relative ease, grouped in neighboring departments.  The last name on their list read Becky Rosen, PhD, and it took a little more time to find her office, snuggled into a dingy nook of the theater building, of all places.

Dean knocked on the open door, eager to finish their scavenger hunt, while Cas examined a collage of magazine cut-outs featuring shirtless male celebrities all circling the word “machismo” cut out of purple construction paper.

“Come in!”  Dr. Rosen shrilled, and Dean poked his head into her tidy office to see her typing away at her desk with her back to the door.

“Hello?”  

She concluded whatever she was typing with a decided smack of the enter key, then twirled her chair around to greet Dean properly.  She remained sitting, so Dean had to guess on height, but he gathered that she was a short and spunky sort of lady.  The kind of woman who was probably wearing the knee length skirt, saddle shoes and white folded-over ankle socks ironically, and could probably put a sailor to shame when it came to stringing expletives together.  

“Hello there, person.  How can I help you?”

“I’m here to pick up  Sam Winchester’s homework assignments, and give you this note from his doctor.”  Dean approached her with the signed medical document.

“Sam Winchester?  Oh my god!  What’s wrong with Sam?”  Her eyes bugged out for a moment, but she managed to keep them in her skull long enough to convince herself that Dean asking for his homework assignments meant that Sam wasn’t dead.

“He fell off a ladder.  Gonna be out for a little bit.  But he’s fine.  Considering.”

Dr. Rosen stared at the doctor’s note as if it held a detailed account of the accident.  All that it really featured was a very un-stereotypically neat doctor’s signature and the suggestion that she not expect to see Sam for up to two weeks.  Unsatisfied, she looked back to  Dean.

“Well, he’s very lucky to have a partner like you to help him out.  I know how important his schoolwork is to him.”

Dean began to nod until his brain supplied that Dr. Rosen had used “partner” in place of “brother”.  He chuckled.

“No I’m Sam’s brother.  Sam’s not gay.”

“But you are?”  

“I’m Dean.”

“Oh, and this is your partner?”  Dr. Rosen turned her chin towards Cas who had materialized in the doorway behind Dean, having apparently figured out the deeper meaning behind the topless man collage, and moved on.

“No, this is Cas.  I don’t have a partner.”

“Well this is a LGTB-safe campus.”  Dr. Rosen gestured towards her triangular LGTB-safe certification sticker.

“Uh, yeah. That’s good, but I’m not gay.”

“Oh. Are you gay?”  Dr. Rosen plunged ahead with vigor.  Castiel furrowed his brow.

“I am indifferent.  Are you attempting to meet a quota of some sort?”

At this, Dr. Rosen finally took a moment to breath, then blushed, and looked at the floor with the face of a woman with no more recipes and a rained-on cake.  After a moment the fog in her eyes cleared and she attempted to return to some level of social normalcy.  She twirled to one side to reach her mousepad and began clicking around to locate Sam’s future assignments.

“Sorry about that.  Don’t mind me!”  She finished her clicking and turned back around, raising her hands in a very demonstrative shrug.  “I ask out of habit, but I shouldn’t have because you’re not even theater students.  You’re just people.  It would have been anecdotal at best.”  Her eyes flicked between the two men once more, until she strapped down whatever thought was running away with her brain and snatched a freshly printed sheet of paper out of the printer.  She extended it to Dean.

“Here’s Sam’s assignments.  Silver lining - he’s probably in the perfect condition to have a Doctor Sexy marathon.”  Dean coughed and looked at the print-out incredulously.

“Watching Doctor Sexy is an assignment?  Where were you when I was in college?”  Castiel glanced at Dean and raised an eyebrow.

“Well I offer them a list of shows they can choose from, and it’s not what I would choose personally, but generally the men in my class tend to gravitate towards Doctor Sexy.  Maybe they have previous exposure to it from watching it with their mothers.  Who knows?”

Dean shifted from one foot to the other and scowled at the print-out.

“I’m sorry.  Is Doctor Sexy actually the name of a television program?”  Cas the medical professional asked the question quite seriously because the medical profession was serious and should be treated as such.  Dean dropped his shifty disinterest like a pair of pink panties and gaped at Cas.

“You work in a hospital and you’ve never heard of Doctor Sexy?”

Cas considered.

“Perhaps that explains why it seems to occasionally be used as a term of endearment between some of the staff.”

Dr. Rosen nodded, knowingly.

“Yes.  Doctor Sexy generally has a love/hate relationship with those familiar with the medical community.  If you spend any time watching it with Sam then you’ll know what I mean.”

Dr. Rosen’s computer began to ring with the chimey notification of a Skype call.  She whipped around to check the caller, then began to wave them out with a cheshire grin.

“Alright. Well that’s all Sam needs.  Thank you for letting me know about his condition.  Tell him to feel better!  Tell him I asked about him and I hope he is doing great!  Make sure he relaxes and gets his rest!”

Dean and Cas nodded and waved.  Dr. Rosen smiled, then frantically mimed a request for Dean to shut her office door.  He obliged, and they walked towards the exit accompanied by the squeeing of a bona fide doctor.

…………….

With Cas returned to his vehicle and Sam’s need for performance measuring busy-work sated, Dean retired to his loft apartment, alone.  He was an efficient housekeeper, so there weren’t any chores around to steal his attention.  For a minute he almost wished he had some of Cas’s hypothetically water-damaged ceilings to take care of instead of the much newer, cleaner walls of his own modern encasement.  He had skipped dinner.  He should have been hungry, but he wasn’t.  He felt off, but not shaky or faint.  He was also wide awake, which was only serving to layer anger on top of his general funk.

He wondered if a bar would scratch the itch.  There were people at a bar.  He wouldn’t be alone.  He could likely get one or two of those people to come home with him with fairly little effort, and they could have a grand time ruining the sheets, then part ways, forever.

But Sammy was hurt.  Yes, Dean could be reached no matter where he went, but if Sammy called he would do so assuming Dean was at home.  And for some reason that mattered, at least a little bit.  He looked at his phone.  As if on cue it lit up and gave a little buzz on the counter.

_301-555-1212 ~ Hope Sam feels better. This is my number if you need further assistance. This is Cas._

Dean programmed the number into his phone.  He stared at it for a moment and considered his reply.  He wasn’t a big texter, but then Cas didn’t strike him as one either.  If it were Sam he’d have already punched a message back complete with some kind of unnecessary and confusing emoticon and at least three abbreviations.

 _ **Thanks.** _  He started, and paused to consider whether he had anything else to add.   _ **Will likely be in Sam’s room tomorrow with burgers at 12.  Will you be around then?**_

Dean pocketed his phone, picked up his laptop and started up the narrow staircase that led to his four poster bed.  His loft was tall, and all the extra headspace occasionally made him feel small or vulnerable.  He’d even considered stringing up a canopy, but ultimately building himself a bed-fort (though an awesome idea) didn’t seem worth the additional fire hazard.  His pocket rumbled as he tossed his computer on the bed.

_Cas: I will._

Dean huffed out a laugh.   At least he wasn’t the only one who didn’t get this whole  texting thing.

_**You want  me to grab you a burger?** _

The response was immediate this time.

_Cas: Sure. Whatever you’re having._

At least Cas kept things simple.  Dean checked to see that his alarm was set then put his phone aside on the bedstand, being staunchly adverse to ever texting “okay”, and preferring his silence to act as confirmation.  He flopped on the bed and opened his laptop, anxious to explore his favorite porn sites to see if this itch could be scratched before the morning.


	3. Knock-knock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Castiel become friends while Sam and Ruby become friends with benefits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PORN. M/F PORN AHOY. If you have something against that, you should stop reading! I decided to experiment with smut. And the Dean/Cas in this fic is going to be slow burn, which leaves Sam hanging around waiting for me to make him have sex with people (who are not Gabriel - sorrynotsorry).
> 
> Actually commenting on the porn would be great, because I was reading up on other people's m/f smut - but I was reading OTP smut and it used very frilly language. Is this how you want all your smut, or do you want not-true-love sex to be more real-to-life? OR do you not want any not-true-love sex? I'll probably only get answers to this when the fic is done, but oh well. It's never too late to answer these questions.

The next day at 11:58 AM, Dean arrived in Sam’s room with three bulging burger bags, greasy with free floating fries. Doctor Sexy, seasons three and four were couched inconspicuously within the flannel of his armpit. Sam lolled his head over to look at Dean, tearing his tired eyes from the window, and accepted a sunny smile from his older brother.

“Sammy! Up an at ‘em! I figured you get all the rabbit food you want delivered from the cafeteria, so I just brought comfort food.”

Sam’s jaw flexed and he stared at the food bags, perplexed.

“It’s weird. On one hand a burger sounds really gross, but I kind of feel like the grease would be good for me somehow.”

Dean plunked lunch down on a rolling table that was stationed at the foot of the bed, and began to unpack.

“Maybe you need a good thick coating of grease on your stomach so the meds don’t make you sick.”

Sam winced.

“Uh, that’s horrible. But you’re probably right. I’m so conflicted.”

Dean just laughed as he tossed a foil-wrapped burger at Sam’s chest, then bit into his own with gusto.

“Knock, knock.” Cas unknowingly did the world’s best vocal impersonation of a knuckle hitting thick hospital doorframe while standing idly in the doorway of Sam’s room.

“Hey, Cas.” Sam said with curiosity.

Dean reached over and pulled a chair from its place on the wall, up to the table, then extended the third burger bag towards Castiel, all while taking a gigantic bite of his own food. Cas entered and accepted his lunch, sitting in the designated chair and diving into his fries with one hand while he unwrapped his burger with the other.

“Hungry much?” Sam asked.

“Breakfast.” Cas mumbled around a mouth full of potato, meat and bun.

“You guys are doing wonders for my appetite.” Sam deadpanned. Dean threw a fry at him. Cas shrugged and chewed, and chewed some more.

“Knock, knock.” This time the voice was decidedly un-door-like. Dean and Cas continued to eat like the famished while Sam politely played host.

“Ruby!” If it were just two years earlier, Sam’s voiced would have cracked in surprise. Dean heard the ghost of Sammy past and looked up from his pig-out.

“Hey, Sam. I got worried when you left me hanging without an answer. But I guess this is a passable excuse.” She grasped the doorframe with a delicate hand, and leaned casually against it, her lips pulled to one side with knowing flirtation.

Dean squinted at her, which she shouldn’t have been able to see, her eyes glued on Sam. But she responded anyway.

“I’m Ruby. I’m your local Demon Blood rep, here to give Sam his get well soon gift.” She announced to the room. “You must be Dean.” She did not approach Dean, but instead dipped her manicured hand into her fashionable purse and pulled out a super-sized can of Demon Blood and walked it across the room to Sam’s bedside table. Once there she pulled up a chair and eyed Dean expectantly.

Dean furrowed his brow. Sam knew a lot of girls, but not a lot of “older” women that Dean didn’t know made a habit of physically putting themselves between himself and his brother. Dean had to remind himself this was a friendly hospital visit and not the time for protective brotherly posturing. He checked Cas’s reaction. Cas was chewing slowly, staring blankly as if he were utterly alone.

“How’d you know I was here?” Sam interrupted the awkwardness, as if he had somewhere to be. Ironic, considering he was stuck there all day.

“Being a salesperson gets you a lot of good connections. You hear things.” She put her hand over Sam’s and squeezed gently. Sam swallowed. Cas’s head shot up and he began putting Dean’s previous squinting to shame. Ruby felt the sudden heat of it and faltered.

“I mean, once I told Bobby you had basically stood me up he told me where to find you. I think he wanted to make sure and protect the Winchester good name.” She trailed her hand up Sam’s arm lightly and squeezed his bicep.

“Well Dean’s already pretty much destroyed it when it comes to women.” Sam grumbled.

Dean decided his best option at this point was joining Cas in the subtle rudeness of ignorance. He polished off the last few bites of his burger, then visibly brightened when he discovered a bunch more fries at the bottom of his bag. Cas was making his lunch last by emptying every ketchup packet provided (and maybe some he brought with him?) into the foil from his burger. Dean joined in. He was usually in too much of a hurry for condiments, but the Demon Blood chick was making Sammy blush. So maybe it was time to enjoy the finer things, like a french fry with ketchup.

Ruby let her distaste show for a moment, then threw her easygoing manner back on and stood up.

“Well I’m really glad you’re okay, Sam. Text me.” She found his knee through the blanket like some kind of tickle pro and pinched it until he yelped, then shot him competitive grin, and made her exit, dark hair swishing behind her.

“Uh. So.” Sam prompted, guessing it was pointless to delay the inevitable.

“You gonna eat?” Dean asked, innocently.

“Yeah. Right after you give me the third degree.”

“What?” He projected genuine confusion. “I mean, she’s a little old for you, but a hot chick is a hot chick. Go Sammy. You got something to look forward to when you get better.”

Cas looked thoughtful. He had ketchup on his chin. Dean handed him a napkin and indicated as much. Sam narrowed his eyes and reflected on how conveniently Ruby’s presence had distracted him from bringing up the fact that he hadn’t seen Dean without Cas at his side since the accident.

“Knock, knock.” A healthy looking blonde with a sporty build was standing in the doorway holding a bag emblazoned with the Pita Palace logo.

“Jess!”

“Hey, Sam. Is it a bad time?”

All eyes turned to Sam. Cas looked intrigued and Dean smiled, gleefully.

“Nope.” Sam squeaked. “Dean and Castiel were just leaving. Is that Pita Palace? It smells awesome!”

Cas took his cue, crumpled up their mess and jammed it into an empty bag. Dean grabbed their coats, and they traded places with Jess, slinking into the hall. Sam tossed his untouched burger into the trash as Jess came around the bed with something that smelled strongly of Feta.

“Well it’s Tuesday, and I couldn’t just leave you here in the hospital to survive on … Demon Blood alone. I was going to bring you your homework too, but Professor Rosen said you already sent someone to get it.”

Dean chuckled as he put his coat on in the hall, then turned his attention to Cas.

“You going to sleep now?”

Cas checked his watch and nodded solemnly. Dean sighed.

“You work tonight?”

“No.”

“When you gonna wake up?”

“Around eight.”

“You wanna watch a movie or something?”

Cas tilted his head and examined Dean thoroughly.

“Sure.”

“Alright. I’ll text you.”

With a nod they each moved towards opposite exits.

……………………………………….

Dean called Cas that night at eight and Cas arrived at Dean’s apartment 45 minutes later with a half gallon of Death by Chocolate ice cream. Dean yelled that the door was open when he heard the bell. Cas smelled popcorn.

“Jesus, Cas. Way to be a girl.”

“Not that I take offense, but how could my entering your home possibly have struck you as feminine?”

“You brought chocolate ice cream to cry into.” Dean grabbed a bowl of popcorn from the counter and gestured towards the couch.

“I did not realize that one needed specific genetalia in order to appreciatae ice cream.”

Dean shook his head and sat down with a huff.

“Fine. You win. Everyone likes ice cream. I don’t know why I said it.” He grimaced. An internal voice asked him if he treated Cas too much like he treated Sam. He shrugged the voice off with a twitch of his shoulder. “How late you plan on staying up?”

Cas invited himself into Dean’s kitchen and put the ice cream in the freezer.

“I just got six hours of sleep. I’ll probably be up all night.” He returned to the living room and settled himself into an easy chair set up next to Dean’s side of the couch. Dean looked pleased for some reason and grabbed the remote.

“Alright. We’ll each pick a movie. I pick first.”

Dean picked Rudy because he vaguely remembered it was good. He was totally guilty of crying into Cas’s ice cream, when he wasn’t sprawled out over the entire couch, clutching a pillow to his chest. Cas picked When Harry Met Sally because it was supposed to be a classic. They spent so much of the film marveling at the unflattering fashions of the time that Dean almost didn't realize they were watching a romantic comedy. Almost.

"I can understand how it stood the test of time." Cas said, giving it its due as the credits rolled. Dean scoffed.

"I can't believe you made me watch a chick flick."

Cas eyed Dean critically.

"You do realize that stories of romance between men and women have existed since the beginning of time, don't you? Long before women were even taught to read, or published authors. The intended audience was originally male."

"You take everything really literally, Cas."

"Well many of your offhand remarks voice your disapproval of the female gender."

Dean flexed his eyebrows and fiddled with the remote control, switching the TV to some MMA tournament show and muting it. How was that even possible? He loved women. Lots of women. And he appreciated the good looks of hundreds more. Dean Winchester belonged to the ladies. He was a ladies man. And Meg Ryan had definitely been the highlight of the movie, crazy hair and all. He cleared his throat as his face heated under Cas’s gaze.

“Well then I’m using the wrong ...terminology. ‘Cause that’s not what I’m trying to say.”

“Good.” Cas rewarded him with a small smile.

……………………………………………….

Sam came home from the hospital and into Dean’s apartment for two weeks before moving back into his on-campus dorm room. Dean and Cas welcomed him to their movie nights, which they had on and off every four or five days, depending on Cas’s somewhat rigorous work schedule. At first, Sam wondered if Dean was trying to replace him. Cas was older, and seemed to live a very consistent life. He never spoke about furthering his career or changing his field of employment. It became obvious that he was very well travelled, after they coaxed him into telling a few stories about his college years. Sam listened with bright eyes, focusing on Cas’s reverent descriptions of unfamiliar scenery and ancient ruins. Dean found certain missing components to be more telling, noting the absence of family or any significant others from Cas’s tales of childhood and travel abroad.

Cas did his share of listening as well, tuning in to just as many conspicuous silences. He never heard a word about Dean and Sam’s mother, and stories about their childhood antics were set at Bobby’s house or Bobby’s gym, nine times out of ten.

Through their mutual attention to the missing details, Cas and Dean gradually became closer friends. Sam wasn’t replaced. He was often with them, but between his face being buried in books or the phone beeping incessantly in his pocket, he just barely managed to notice their bond, and be grateful to the Force that they were able to find time to have a new friendship when the last issue of Cosmo wrote that it was nearly impossible to make new friends after 25 (he had read that in the hospital).

………………………………………………..

Finally fully healed and back to work, Sam was sitting at the desk of Winchester Iron with a giant book on his lap, curling his spine to get as close to the text as possible when Dean wandered in from the office and smushed the text into Sam’s face as he read the cover.

"Human sexuality? Seriously, Sammy? You're in college. You're supposed to be studying this shit outside of a classroom. In a flowery dorm room. Or a car. Or in a classroom when there is no class taking place. Extra credit." Dean gave him a wink.

Sam punched Dean in the arm in retaliation for the face smash, then rolled his eyes.

“It’s Human Sexuality in Modern Media, Dean. We have to understand it anthropologically before we can compare its representation in TV and movies.”

"Hell, you could just ask me. That would have saved you the $80 you wasted on that book."

"Dean, what you could tell me about sexuality wouldn't even fill one chapter."

"Oh really? Try me, Dr. Ruth."

Sam flipped backwards towards the front of the book and furrows his brow in concentration.

"Okay here. Did you know that human sexuality evolved past a biological imperative for reproduction while we were still primates? It says here that gender-specific arousal is a product of our cultural upbringing and that cultures that do not pigeonhole sexuality into a strict dichotomy are more evolved and therefore more efficient than cultures that promote sexual attraction as genetically unchanging?"

"Hippie bullshit."

"Not even one chapter." Sam’s bitch face was covered with the quintessential nerd-brother condescension.

Dean lifted his hand to accentuate his acceptance of Sam's challenge, and punctuated words with it at random intervals.

"You're saying if we teach that everyone could be bisexual that would make us more evolved? Yeah right. There would be chaos. Look, Sammy, some guys like chicks 100% and some guys like dudes 100%, and vice versa with the ladies, but men have to mate with women. It's still a biological imperative.

Dean stuck his chin out in defiance of Sam's book.

"And sure it’s easy for some hippy-dippy professor to tell a bunch of hetersoexual kids that they have a free pass to experiment with the same sex just to give our stick-up-their-ass culture the middle finger. But it kind of screws over the gay kids to throw a bunch of hot co-eds into their dating pool if most of them are just gonna get back out.”

Sam considered the surprising sensitivity of this idea, and was momentarily impressed.

"So there's nothing about a guy that could ever attract you? Nothing you'd go gay for?" Sam delivered the question sarcastically, but with an expression of almost tense curiosity.

"Fathers." Cas’s baritone cut through the brotherly bickering like a slow motion Lego avalanche as he appeared at the counter, seemingly out of nowhere. "I think fathers who interact kindly with their young children can be very attractive, provided there is nothing off-putting about their physical appearance."

"So there. Cas is gay for dads.". Sam was clearly heartened by this confirmation. Dean gave Cas a sideways look.

"What about you, Sam?" Cas asked as if he were making the most pleasant conversation.

"Uh..."

"Sam is gay for degrees.” Dean interrupted, triumphantly. “You’ve got a few, right Cas? He's probably getting excited just talking to you. And he definitely has it bad for his human sexuality professor."

"My professor's a girl, Dean."

"Yeah, with a PhD. That should make you totally hot for teacher."

"No way, Dr. Rosen? Maybe. No. Not really. You're changing the subject. What’re you gay for?"

Dean made a shrug that said 'search me'.

"From what I have seen, I would say that Dean has an unconditional love 'kink', but does not feel worthy of anyone who would offer it to him. He's staunchly heterosexual, but it is statistically more likely that he would achieve a closer relationship with a man, seeing that he purposely keeps the most eligible and willing women at an arm's length in order to avoid any emotional attachment and 'save them' from him. The only new, meaningful relationships he allows himself tend to mimic his relationship with you, Sam. He will either befriend a woman whom he is also sexually attracted to, concede to the opinion that sexual attraction can be generated by more than a response to opposing genetalia, or continue believing he is unworthy of lasting affection and die alone. "

Dean's jaw flexed as Sam looked him over with a pondering expression.

"I was going to say I was gay for a nice six pack. Thanks a lot Freud." Dean snatched up a clipboard and brought it into the back office with a huff. Sam and Cas raised their eyebrows at each other, but did not have time to speak before Dean waltzed back out and tossed the clipboard back onto the desk.

"Firstly, Cas, your dad kink is just a way to be safely attracted to the most unavailable men. At least I was brave enough to say I like a six pack, even though it's something a whole bunch of single gay guys have, unlike small children." Cas opened his mouth to protest, but Dean continued. "Next you're gonna tell us you have a thing for young priests." Cas shut his mouth with a snap.

"Second, did we actually get confirmation that Sam gets boners for doctorates?". Sam blushed.

"I don't get aroused by education. I just have great admiration for geniuses-"

"Fine. Not gay. Or bi. Or whatever." Dean dismissed it, leaving Sam torn between disappointment and relief.

"Sam's admiration can not be so easily dismissed. I do not base attraction solely on immediate physical response. I'm often not aware of sexual attraction until physical contact is initiated by the other party."

"TMI, Cas. Third, I can be friends with women. I'm friends with Charlie."

"Charlie's a girl. She’s gay." Sam stage whispered to Cas.

"AND I'm friends with Jo."

"Jo’s a girl. And Jo loves him." Sam added.

"So you would date your friend Jo?" Cas asked with an open curiosity.

"No way. She's too young for me. She doesn't know what she wants yet, but it ain't me."

Cas stared and blinked, biting down on a triumphant smirk. Sam turned his gaze from Cas to Dean, gears whirring furiously under his furrowed brow.

"Cas is good at this."

"Shut up."

Dean grabbed his jilted clipboard one more time and went back into the office. The squeak of the desk chair told them he was not planning on returning to the debate. The front door whooshed as a stream of warm air entered with a new party.

“Human Sexuality? You could have saved yourself a bunch of money and just asked me.” Ruby purred as she leaned over the counter and walked her pointer and middle fingers over Sam’s textbook.

“I might still have questions.” Sam countered, looking up through his floppy bangs without missing a beat.

“Good. I can quiz you. I’ve got a can of Demon Blood with your name on it if you pass.” Ruby licked her lips and Sam stood, plunking his textbook down on the desk.

“Dean! I’m taking my break!” Sam yelled as he skirted around the counter and followed Ruby’s swinging hips out the door.

Dean came back out to the desk and sat in Sam’s chair, his eyes downcast for a few moments before he looked at Cas, standing unbelievably still behind the counter.

“Whatever happened to the blonde girl, Jess?” Cas asked, his voice a little sad.

“He says they’re just friends.” Dean replied, turning his gaze to the door with an unreadable expression. “This Ruby chick’s been around a lot, so he must be doing something right. Go Sammy.”

Dean’s tone didn’t match his words. It came closer to resembling Cas’s wrinkly forehead of concern. But Sam was a big boy who could make his own choices, and both men were too busy being happy to forget the human sexuality debate to worry about his questionable hook-ups.

………………………………………

Outside the gym Ruby led Sam around the corner of the building and into the alley, She had parked the Demon Blood van there and left it idling.

“Got to keep the product cool” She smirked as she threw open the back door. It was obviously the end of Ruby’s delivery route, for only a couple cases of Demon Blood remained, stacked neatly behind the passenger seat. The rest of the trunk was empty, save for some uncannily clean looking movers blankets forming a comfortable carpet. “So, how long’s your break?”

“Long enough.” Sam grinned, unzipping his hoodie.

“Well then hop in.”

Sam did as he was told, crawling in on his knees then turning onto his back, propped on his elbows. Ruby followed him in and slammed the door behind her. She wasted no time pulling off her sweater, then crawled over him, grazing her sheer black bra along his chest and letting her eyelids flutter when her nipples caught against the fabric just so. Sam reached a hand out tentatively, skimming it over her ass and onto the bare skin on her back. The contact made her lean her thigh into his crotch, their lips finally meeting in a rush of breath.

She ground against him as they kissed, pausing first to pull off Sam’s shirt, then again to unclasp her bra, which led to Sam’s sudden move forward as his elbow got tired of supporting all of their weight. He moved his aching arm up to cup her breast then began to tease her nipple with practiced fury. Ruby bit her lip and writhed with delight, pushing her forehead into the crook of Sam’s neck for a moment as she pulled at his pants, wrenching them as far open as she could and allowing herself unfettered access to his hardened cock.

She stroked him a few times before she whipped a condom out of somewhere and slid it over him, Sam letting out a quiet sigh as she applied of ring of firm pressure from tip to root. His hands didn’t forget themselves though, and he hiked up her skirt to discover there was no more fabric standing between them. Ruby leaned forward and bit his earlobe, pausing to whisper as she slid a small bottle into his hand.

“Here. I want you to touch me first.”

Sam slid both hands around to her back and popped the bottle, lubing his fingers generously before capping it and tossing it aside. He leaned back once more, and watched Ruby squirm her skirt off over her head, leaving her kneeling over him, naked and flushed, hair falling out of her ponytail after the hurried undressing.

“C’mon Sam.” Ruby whined, and sat on his cock, pressing it into his stomach as she rutted her crack against it. She lifted herself again, and this time Sam was ready, sliding his slick fingers along the narrow trail of hair that led to her inner heat. He brought the opposite hand to play with the nipple that he had before neglected, which made Ruby momentarily squirm with delight. She ran a hand down her neck and around her waist, framing her slim hips and putting on a show of her pleasure.

Sam took a controlled breath of concentration, then moved his lubricated finger from teasing around the edges to slide it slowly inside her. She moaned, dropping her hips onto his hand as her body searched for more. Sam bit his lip and reminded himself that he needed to keep moving the digits of both hands in order to keep Ruby naked and moaning above him.

“Oh God, Sam. Fuck. Fuck I’m ready.” She pitched her head forward in pleasure, then reached down to pull his cock up and slide down onto it in one smooth motion. When he was fully engulfed she sighed again, and began grinding her clit forward and back against the base of his shaft. Sam’s face twitched as he felt Ruby’s insides rhythmically contracting around him. He had never been with a woman whose internal musculature was so pronounced, before Ruby.

She alternatingly fucked onto him and ground against him, and he held himself on the verge with great discipline until he could see the signs of her finish. Stuttered grinding, and her telltale lean forward to graze her nipples along his chest for one last thrill to put her over the edge. They came close to one another, gasping, with their eyes squeezed shut.

She only let them rest for a moment before clean-up ensued. It was relatively quick for Sam, considering he had performed without fully removing his pants. Ruby was back into her clothes almost as fast. She tossed a travel pack of wet-wipes and a grocery bag at Sam for disposal of the evidence, then watched him remove the condom and wipe himself up with a pout on her still-pink face.

“I want to say that you’re my favorite delivery stop, but I don’t actually deliver here. Eventually my boss is gonna catch on, and then I’ll have to stop our visits.”

“What can I say? My brother just isn’t buying what you're selling.” Sam answered, honestly. “Could you come by during your lunchtime? Don’t get in trouble.”

Ruby rolled her eyes.

“Oh Sammy. You are definitely my favorite delivery. Now get out of here. I gotta air this place out before I get back.”

Sam stuck his tongue out at her and Ruby leaned over and bumped her cheek into it in the most striking show of affection of the whole encounter.


	4. Sitcom Staging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Cas and Sam AND CHARLIE! Oh my.  
> Coconut Oil!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some f/f. I surprise myself every day.  
> Tell me if the point it's cut-off makes you angry.  
> Seriously. Coconut oil. Anything that sounds like a fact in this fic is made up, EXCEPT COCONUT OIL.  
> Do not worry. M/M on the horizon.

Dean knew that Sam was getting it on with the Demon Blood rep. He could smell it on him, not literally, but in the very familiar changes in his demeanor.  Normally a person getting regular sex from a hottie would have a certain spring in their step. But Samsqantch was no regular person, so his occasional air of deserved satisfaction was interspersed between spells of soul-searching contemplation and hesitant chagrin.

Cas and Dean observed this together one afternoon, standing around the Winchester Iron front desk, their positions practically ground into the floor like the blocking of a typical sitcom.  Ruby had been "in the neighborhood" about an two hours prior, and they had gone on a "walk" that somehow resulted in Sam needing to shower in the middle of his shift.  Dean had scowled.  Not at the sex.  He was cool with sex.  He was more embarrassed about the midday shower.  As far as he was concerned it was poor form.

But he was an awesome brother and a rockin' boss and he let it all go.  Cas did the same, except he watched it with an eagle’s intensity and not one single shred of shame.  

That was something Dean had started to really love about Cas.  Dean was shameless, but Cas had no shame.  It made sense in his head.  Dean knew what society wanted, and couldn’t be bothered with it if wasn’t necessary to immediately gratify him (or help someone in need- damn his bleeding heart).  Cas really had no idea what shame was.  He could stare a hole through a blouse and completely miss death glare that was returned.  He could ignore what you were saying from two feet away and just point out that the lighting was really nice outside at that moment, when you complained.  He could lecture Sam about clean living and order double bacon on his cheeseburger that very same night.

Dean wondered if Cas’s level of cool was something he'd always had, or if it was something Dean would someday grow into.  

"So Dean, I was wondering, why a gym?"  Dean was shaken out of his head by Cas, fully trenched, but still standing in that one spot as if the director had marked it with a red tape X.

"It's what I know."  Dean coughed a little and stooped to pull the lost-and-found box onto the counter.

"That's it? Your career was determined by your upbringing?  Are you trying to recreate your youth?"  

Dean never usually felt like prey when Cas turned the falcon squint on him, but childhood talks were hard.

"Ha. No.  Definitely not that. Uh. It's full of ironies and metaphors?"

A freshly washed Sam rolled the office chair into the doorway so that he could look over in confusion, as if Dean had just answered Cas in fluent Cantonese.

“I could be convinced.”

"Well yeah.  Life and vanity shit.  Fighting the aging process, which is ultimately inevitable.   Trading away precious free time to participate in mindless activities that no one would volunteer for if it weren't for the results.  Working hard to get rid of things instead of making new things.  Paying for loss.   Running on treadmills, making progress but physically getting nowhere.  Training in violent sports to positively channel aggression.  Uh.  You are what you eat?"

"Weak sauce on the last one." Sam scoffed.

"Which one applies best to me?"

Dean looked mystified, which was his default response to Cas's philosophical inquiries.  Cas waited patiently for phase two, when Dean usually surprised everyone but Cas with some simple insight.

"You come here looking for people to connect with, but the only person you ever get to know in a gym is yourself.  And you know what? I bet you only leave satisfied about 50% of the time.  You're too hard on yourself, Cas."

Cas licked his teeth and glanced at the floor before returning a small smile.

"If not for your vanity, you could have named your gym 'Pumping Ironies'."

Sam laughed out loud, and Dean smiled wide, but noted the deflection just the same.

“Hey Cas, how do you feel about fishing?”

....................................................

Sam sat in the doorway and watched Dean the workaholic plan a four day fishing trip with the older man.  His mood slowly climbed from pleased to ecstatic as he considered their exchange.  Dean never really had friends - or maybe he did, but they were bar friends as far as Sam could tell.  People he’d see out, and text if he was out, but otherwise wouldn’t mix with day to day.

But today, Dean, who had had to take over all the worst parts of being a father while their actual dad and Bobby shared what they could scrape together of the good times, was finally planning a vacation worthy of a dad.  Despite the saying, Time couldn’t make a dent in some of the Winchester’s wounds, but Sam was cautiously optimistic that it had managed to patch up a few.  And here was proof.

He pulled his chair back to the office computer in baby steps, and stared at the assignments in front of him.  He still couldn’t believe he was supposed to be writing a same-sex romance using people from his everyday life.  It felt SO WRONG.  Yes, he could appreciate the experience already.  Upon hearing the assignment he felt not a little bit giddy about writing about two girls he knows, getting together.  He’d already been assigned a pretty large amount of fan fiction reading, so he knew what was up and what those ladies would inevitably end up doing, even though his assignment technically had to be rated Teen and Up for class.

He tried to cast his story.  So far it was a little one-sided.  He had lots of fodder for Ruby, and the thought of her making out with another girl was beyond hot.  He could imagine her in a dorm or a sorority or somewhere else she’d never deign to be.  And she’d be showing her sorority sister the new lingerie she had bought in hopes of getting with some dumb jock that weekend, or maybe how to check for lumps, or perhaps asking the pre-med student to take a look at that one mole just under her left nipple.  

Anyway, the girl would be super cool with it (she grew up with hippie parents and a lot of sisters, or something) and she’d flop down on the bed in front of Ruby and carefully examine the lingerie/ demonstration/ just-a-skin-tag until Ruby could feel the girl’s warm breath on her sternum.  And she’d be blonde, with her long hair pulled into a Tomb Raider braid, and have those dark nerd glasses that do nothing to disguise how naturally gorgeous she is.  Ruby’s breath would hitch as the girl brushed against her hip or something, accidentally, and the girl would smile, thinking she had just tickled her.

So she’d reach over again and pinch the same spot, and Ruby would squeal and throw her head back and call her a bitch, but be biting down on a smile.  The girl would giggle, but the flush in Ruby’s cheeks would make her catch her breath.  She’d slide her glasses off her nose and stretch out over Ruby, reaching to place them on the bed stand.  Ruby would lay down against the pillows at the head of the bed, arching her back and unconsciously licking her lips as she thought about how pretty the girl’s mouth was and how kissing a girl would probably be so much better than getting drooled on by some half-braindead, drunk athlete.  Ruby would sigh and run her middle finger from her cleavage to her collarbone, wishing she could think of a good way to seduce the sweet-smelling blonde into her waiting pout, or wish the girl’s perfect little tits just a little closer, so she could run her thumb over a nipple and watch the girl throw her head back and expose her long, pale neck.

But the blonde girl wouldn’t be stupid.  She’d reach down and pull the hem of her thin tank top, tugging it up over her head while sitting right in the middle of Ruby’s legs.  Ruby’s eyes would go wide and as close to innocent as she’d ever manage, but the blonde would turn them black again by just going for it and licking Ruby’s flat stomach, from belly button to bra, then crawling the rest of the way up to her mouth and meeting their lips together for a moment before she’d pull back and whisper.

“I’ve only ever done this drunk, before, but I’m done with class for the day, so I kind of want to make this last.  There’s no one else on the floor right now so we can be as loud as we want.”

This would make Rudy suddenly very, wet, and the girl would anticipate that, rubbing her finger on the outside of Ruby’s sheer panty, where she’d already be able to feel it.  She’d trail her finger up Ruby’s stomach and Ruby would feel the line of her own damp along her skin, which would make her arch her back and moan as if she’d been waiting for this for days.  

They would make out for about ten minutes.  Not rolling over the sheets, grabbing and clawing making out.  No, it’d be slow and teasing and full of nips and little pinches and the bras would come off pretty quickly, but they’d both be too shy at first to dive their fingers into each other’s undies.  But by the time Ruby had her wet lips wrapped around the girl’s soft nipple, and the blonde had her fingers twined through Ruby’s hair, grinding her wetness into Ruby’s thigh in a rhythm she could not control, that dam would break.  

Jess’s hand would reach down to yank her sporty neon thong to the side and she would begin to finger herself, letting her soft moans fall into Ruby’s ear until she’d pause and nip at her earlobe.  But she’d only be coherent enough for that kind of tease for a moment or two more before her finger-fucking would get wilder and she’d -

Oh shit did he just say Jess?

Damnit. Damnit. Damnit. Damnit.

Sam was proud of his very feminist treatment of the women in his life, despite Dean's love-em and leave-em example.  He was also positive that fantasizing about your friend naked would turn your friendship weird really quickly.  

Or maybe it wouldn’t?  Maybe Jess was sitting at home writing erotic fiction about Sam and some other dude right this minute.  OH GOD that was an even worse thought.  He needed the brain bleach and he needed it now.  He also needed to put kind, friendly, smart, funny, compassionate Jess back into her friend cubby right this instant.  Whenever there was danger of her escaping he always ended up plagued with uncertainty and guilt.  Ruby was hot and forward and honest (about what she wanted from Sam) but on paper Jess was twice the woman - well that’s harsh.  Let’s just say she was three times as compatible with Sam and she seemed to actually enjoy his platonic company, which was more than he could say about Ruby.  So why was he still meeting Ruby in her van at all hours of the afternoon, and continuing to let Jess pay for her own study-date lattes?

Sam rubbed his eyes, then his cheeks, then the neck behind his ears, and sighed continuously.  He needed a new angle on this assignment.  It was supposed to be a romance, not porn.  

He stared at the office walls until his eyes landed on a newspaper article about Bobby’s MMA coaching, and his client Abaddon.  Abaddon was the main subject of the accompanying photograph, with Bobby on her left, and Fergus Crowley, her manager standing proudly on her right.  

Well, Crowley was a snake, he reasoned, but if Bobby were gay, there’s no way he could do better than Crowley.

Sam cracked his knuckles over the keyboard and began to type, shaking his head in disbelief as he tried to imagine a reality where his father-figure and his arch nemesis would actually kiss.

………………………...

"Hey Cas, I got you something for the trip."  Dean smiled and pulled a cardboard box up from under the counter.  Cas cockatieled his head and peered over the edge.  Inside, rather haphazardly placed, were the seven paperback volumes of the Harry Potter series, in somewhat loved condition.  Dean beamed without a hint of hesitation.

"I know you like Tolkien and you probably wouldn't go out and get these on your own.  Now I know you think I got something against girls, but Hermione is awesome.  She's bad-ass and the writer doesn't get her together with Harry in the end or anything."

"SPOILER ALERT!"  Charlie's voice pierced the cool air like a fiery arrow, and her hair continued the analogy, piled on top of her head in any which way to keep her sweating neck itch-free.  "Dean Winchester, I cannot believe you would sully the Harry Potter experience for a newbie in this way!"  She reached over to swat at his shoulder, then turned to Cas.  "Hi.  I'm Charlie.  You must be Castiel."

Cas smiled almost imperceptibly as they shook hands.

"Sorry I have gross sweat hand."

"It's alright.  I am about to have gross sweat hands."  He turned back to Dean.  "Thank you for the books.  May I leave them here for now?"

"Yeah sure thing.  I'll just pack them up with my shit and bring them along tomorrow.  Don't worry about it."  Dean put the box back under the counter.

"Nice to meet you, Charlie."  And Cas exited into the locker room.

Charlie and Dean watched him go before Charlie turned back and flopped her elbows on the high counter.

"He seems like a nice weirdo.  Where you guys goin'?"

"Fishin'."  

"Like in a boat?"

"Like in a boat on a lake."

"With Harry Potter?"

"Well Cas has never been fishing.  But he likes quiet.  He'll probably dig it.  And if not, he's got books."

"How long you gonna be gone?"

"Three days or so."

"Ew. In the middle of nowhere with no technology OR chainmail?"

"I never said that.  There's a cabin.  It's got a DVD player.  I'm pretty sure there's cell reception."  Dean's brow furrowed as he considered the possibility that he would be driving out of range the following day.  "Well there's a land line."

"Oooo.  You should give me that number."  Her eyes glowed as she plunked her chin in her hand and smiled sweetly.

"Why?"  Dean looked suspicious.  Charlie looked afronted. 

"So I can conference in to your slumber party!  C'mon we can Mystery Science Theater something!  Or talk about how gross we feel watching Sorcerer's Stone now that we wanna dirty bang grown-up Hermione."  Charlie began poking Dean in the ribs, which reduced him to a squirming mess.

"Speak for yourself!  Stop.  Stop it!"  He curled away from her, laughing, but throwing furtive looks past the desk to make sure his patrons weren't watching this incredibly childish display.  Cas was the closest, warming up on a treadmill.  The rest of the gym was somewhat deserted with a few smaller guys taking advantage of the free weights during the midday lull.

"No slumber party."

"Aw c'mon.  Cas seems cool!"

"Cas is cool.  But Cas is... He might not get the whole sleepover thing.  You know he's 38?"

"THIRTY-EIGHT!"  Charlie literally screamed.  Dean cringed, wondering if he had only imagined the extreme volume, but a glance over at Cas caught the man shaking his head as if he knew they were talking about him.  Dean opened his mouth to chastise Charlie, but she was already bounding over to the treadmills.

She planted herself in front of Castiel and looked him over from head to toe.  He gave her a "really?" face, which she waved away.

"Don't worry.  I'm totally gay.  This is science."  She squinted at his exposed calves, and then at his scruffy face. "How do you even...?"

"Coconut oil."

"Huh."  Charlie whipped her smart phone out of her bra and began to navigate at an inhuman speed. "What brand?"  Castiel blinked.

"Um.  It begins with a N and there is ...yellow."  Charlie typed and swiped and held the phone up for him to see, bobbing it up and down to match his light jog (which actually made it much more difficult to focus on).

"This it?" Cas nodded.  "Great.  Thank you!"  Charlie gave him a genuine smile before text walking herself back to the desk, where Dean had watched the whole exchange through his eyelashes while he kept his face pointed at the desk, shuffling papers around like a busybody.  "You sir are now the a proud purveyor of this fine-ass virgin coconut oil.  Congrats!"

“Really?  Where am I gonna put it?”

“I’m ordering you a shelf to put behind the counter right…. now.”  She thumbed her screen triumphantly.

“Why am I selling coconut oil now?”

“Because Cas says it’s why Cas looks like Cas looks.  And I want the wholesale discount.  Suck it up, Winchester.  I'm going to Clooney my way into middle age like your boyish man friend over there, and you're coming with me!"  Her teeth sparkled as she threw Dean a triumphant smile.

"Hey Cas!”  Charlie called out across the gym. “Do you ingest it or just rub it all over yourself?"

"Both."

Charlie raised her eyebrows at Dean, her thumbs likely googling recipes for cookies and body wraps, simultaneously.  Dean let his eyes trail over the floor, lingering on Cas until he noticed the complete loss of Charlie’s attention.

“Alright. Get outta here, kid.  You’re stinkin’ up the desk.”

“Screw you!”  She walked away, eyes still glued to her phone.  “Wow.  Coconut oil is amazing!”


	5. Reeling them in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean fish, but their trip is cut short. Alcohol is a catalyst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While much of this fic is written - this particular part wasn't. And it took me FOREVER. Sorry all you kind and devoted WIP followers. Life is crazy over here, but I do not plan on leaving such a big gap between chapters, going forward. I hope not, at least.
> 
> I'll probably be proofreading this again, but I just needed to get it out already. Sorry about mistakes. Feel free to complain in the comments.

Bobby Singer was Dean's surrogate uncle.  He was wise and surly and devoted to the Winchester boys even without any blood relation.  He had inherited the gym from his father and primarily used it to train boxers and mixed martial artists until Dean had approached him with the business plan that opened the facility to the rest of the public.  Despite his misgivings, the change had boosted their profitability, and actually attracted a higher caliber of fighters to his training - though Crowley was still skulking around with all his pomp and shady money.

Currently Bobby was working with Jo, who was his favorite. She was fierce and spunky and pretty creative when it came to getting out of seemingly inescapable situations.  She also had knock-out power, which was completely unexpected and seemed almost supernatural in its consistency.  Not many little fighters could pull off a TKO in the second or third round.

Her training camp had been going so well that Bobby was ready to set her up to spar with Dean.  It was cruel, but she was pretty enamored of the guy, so it was a good way to get her over her nerves.  

"Stop going easy on me, Winchester.  If this is all you got then I'll just ask Sam to give me a hug.  Seriously. More pressure."

Dean grunted. He didn't love exercising his self control while receiving verbal jabs from a teenager, but it beat the hell out of getting kicked around by Abaddon.  He'd take Jo anyday.

"If you haven't gotten your wrist locked you need to get out if this."  He added pressure to his hold.

"It'd be locked if you weren't a GIGANTIC guy!" She pouted. "You ever gonna let me train with someone in my own weight class, Bobby?"

"Tell you what," Bobby drawled, as Dean tried to secure his own arm bar, and failed. "You win this next fight and we'll have the money to hire Bella."

"What?!" Dean lost his grip and his focus. Bella hadn't exactly been their greatest ally.

"Relax, Dean. I ain't gonna give her a key or anything. Jo needs to spar with the best.  Speaking of - what the hell are you two trying at? Give it up. You look ridiculous."

Dean rolled over and put Jo in a brotherly headlock.  Even with the obvious interest that still flashed through her expression now and then, he didn't have a problem keeping Jo in the friend zone while they sparred.  He was a little worried at first with all the full-body contact of training, and the way being worn out, physically seemed to wear out his will power as well.  But it turned out his arousal was heavily based on proper setup - a time and a place that Dean designated for sex. The gym was off limits, as were his barely legal friends.  Strangers at bars were all systems go.

"So I hear you're goin' to Bobby's cabin this weekend. That true?" Jo had stepped off the mats and doused herself with water.

"Yeah, fishing with a friend."

"Oh... Wow." Dean wrinkled his brow at her. "I'm just saying, it's not like you to take a vacation. This must be some special girl you're trying to impress."

"I'm taking my friend Cas. You've seen him. Tall. Dark hair." Dean ruffled his own hair to indicate Cas's unique styling. " Why would you think I was taking a girl fishing?"

"Oh, I don't know- " Jo put her hands on her hips and glared - "because some girls like fishing.  Have you ever actually taken a girl out to do something you like?"

"Can't say that I have, Jo.  The girls who are into fishing and guns and fighting are... kinda scary."  His eyes twinkled knowingly with the intentional jab.

She bared her teeth and punched him in the shoulder, which actually really stung.  He chuckled his way to the lockers, through a quick shower, and back to the front desk, where Sam was reading something on his tablet.  He blanked it off as soon as Dean came near.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Dean wondered if Sam was in need of some kind of brotherly chat.  The kid had that air about him, as if he were just contemplating something ridiculous like joining the priesthood or ordering something off the TV.

"You good to go this weekend? Got my numbers and all that?"

"Yes, Dean. I know how to call Bobby's cabin."

"Okay." Dean wandered into the office to shuffle around in the mess of papers that seemed like an inevitable side effect of legitimate business.

"Hey, Dean. Have you ever tried to just be friends with a girl?"

Sam's voice wafted through the door, quiet and curious.

"You been talking to Jo?"

"No, why?"

"Jesus. What is it with this place lately? I'm friends with Charlie. I'm friends with Jo. Honestly I can't name that many guys I hang out with either.  You and Cas, basically. Oh I'm kinda friends with Lisa." Dean spoke with his voice slightly raised to reach Sam at the front desk.

"Psh. Yeah until she gives up on her biker boyfriend."

Dean shrugged. He was not ashamed to admit he had a pretty badass leather jacket kicking around waiting to help ease Lisa out of her bad-boy phase and into her pretty-boy, gym rat era.  But after hiring her as the yoga instructor and getting to know her a little, he had mostly given up that fantasy, for the sake of professionalism.  Little did Sam know.  Seriously, Dean got no respect.

"Actually, I'm not trying to lecture you. I just have this friend and I can't tell if - whatever. It's not important."

"You talking about that Jess girl?"

"Uh. Yeah. How do you-?" Sam looked towards the office with a nervous twitch.

"She brought you a sandwich made of salad. I caught that.  She probably wants you."

"I dunno, Dean." Sam sighed gravely, scowling as if Dean's confirmation was actually indicative of the opposite.  "I don't want to say something and screw up our friendship."

"Wait 'till finals week.  Studying in the middle of the night. Then if she doesn't go for it you can blame everything on sleep deprivation.  And then make sure you don't have any more classes together."

Sam wasn't happy with that either. He frowned at the floor and squinted out the window and sighed like an old tree.

"I don't understand what the big problem is." Dean barked.  "You're not asking her to marry you.  You want to hang out and hook up. You're in college. That's what everyone does."

Dean had plopped into a rolly chair.  He rotated himself towards the counter, then thought twice and twirled back to Sam.

"Just don't mess around with her if you're still screwing the Demon Blood girl."

Sam turned bright red and began gulping at the air.  Dean turned back to the counter and shook his head.  His little brother thought he was so sneaky, but he was honestly an open book.  Dean rolled to the computer to tweet about a protein package give away, but his brain circled back to Sam. That right there was the problem with being friends with girls.  Sam should have been able to enjoy hooking up with Ruby and hanging out with Jess.  Who knew where Jess was shacking up at night, anyway? But the kid was determined to guilt himself out of anything fun. Oh well. If this was the worst of Sam's problems then Dean would happily listen him groan about it every day.

.........................................

The drive up to the lake had been mostly uneventful. Cas had vacillated between serene staring and excitedly pointing out interesting scenery.  Dean had played his classic rock cassettes and rolled the window down and almost gotten over the weirdness of road-tripping without Sam as a passenger.  

Cas was a decent substitute. They'd been friends for a few months now, and Dean had accepted Cas into his routines pretty quickly, but Cas still studied Dean intently as if he were the skeleton of some undiscovered dinosaur under a slowly eroding layer of topsoil.  Maybe to Cas that’s what he was.  It was an odd sensation, to think that anyone had enough time on their hands to sit around and ponder the essence of Dean Winchester.  Dean was a little proud that he hadn’t gotten scared off by it.  He had done a little reflecting of his own and decided that it was just how Cas was.  He was an intent studier who studied intently.   Nerd Sam would probably be the same way if he weren’t Dean’s little brother, and therefore contractually obligated to roll his eyes at anything that came out of Dean’s mouth.  

There were a few moments on the drive when the sun came out of the clouds full force and flooded the interior of the Impala with heat and light.  Cas and Dean were never speaking when it happened, but for those moments Dean felt almost subconsciously closer to Cas, as if he were just another guy in a humvee who he could share his feelings with in a meaningful glance instead of the whining about them out loud like a little girl.  

“I always think of God when I see that.”  Cas's voice brought Dean out of his driving trance.  He looked around to see what Cas was indicating, and noticed some bright sun-beams shooting through the clouds and spotlighting a distant patch on a wooded hill.  A fine haze had everything looking like a softly lit painting.

“Yeah?  Like one of those inspirational scripture quotes calendars?”  Cas squinted at him.  

“I didn’t realize you were religious.”  He seemed intrigued.

“Believe me, I’m not.” Dean said, shaking his head for emphasis  “But I think religious types have been using that sunbeam imagery to indicate God for a while now.  They get all sappy over it, like it shows that he loves them.  Like the rainbow after the flood.  Like they can forget all the people He’s slaughtered because of some nice lighting making them feel all chosen.”

Cas smiled at Dean the way a particularly proud professor might.  Dean squirmed, and considered bringing the conversation back to his turf.  For some reason he didn’t like being reminded that Cas was over 13 years older than him.  He liked it when they were even, in their pattern of Cas knowing a lot of incongruous facts and Dean ribbing him as if he were another nerdy younger brother.

“You religious, Cas?”  Dean asked, hoping the answer would be short.

“No.  Not now.” Dean got his wish, and Cas turned to look back out the window.

……………………………………

They hopped in Bobby’s rowboat  soon after they reached the cabin, Dean with his fishing gear and a borrowed rod for Cas.  Cas with spray-on sunscreen and the first Harry Potter.  Dean fished all afternoon.  Cas gave it a try, but was more of the set it and forget it type, finding all sorts of interesting positions to curl into as he read his book in the sun like a cat.  Dean felt himself smiling at the thought of doing this again.  And again.  He now had a friend.  Someone whose life wasn’t as up in the air as Sam’s.  Someone who had a house and a job and wasn’t looking to get his masters across the country, or an internship in Washington.  Maybe Dean was being selfish, but he wasn’t wishing Sam didn’t have any of those opportunities.  He was simply appreciating the fact that his Sam-centric life had left an opening for Cas, so that he wasn’t alone in a fishing boat in the middle of the woods.

“You ever think of moving, Cas?”  Cas lifted his head from the book to lock eyes with Dean, staring with an intensity Dean wasn’t prepared for.

“No.  Do you think of moving?”

“Well maybe into a house or something.”  

Cas’s glare lost its intensity at that, but he didn’t smile.  Just squinted out over the lake.

“Houses are generally too big for one person.  Do you plan on having a family?”  Dean laughed.

“Maybe” Dean winced at his own defensive tone.  “I don’t know.  Hell, it’s been years since I’ve been interested in a second date.”

Dean reeled his line in a little, then looked over to see Cas staring a hole through him.

“What about you?  You’ve got a house.  Where’s your family?”  Dean immediately regretted going on the offensive, even if he did feel Cas’s silent criticism of his treatment of women.

"Everything I have was left to me." Cas deliberately looked out over the water as he spoke. "And none of it seems to fit me correctly."

Dean grimaced. The last thing he needed was to inspire Cas into some existential crisis that had him selling all his belongings and becoming a monk in Mongolia, or something crazy and "centering" like that.

"But being here is nice." Cas smiled at Dean. He closed his book and began to play with his fishing rod.  Like magic, it began to twitch, and Dean helped him reel in their dinner, a 12 lb. Catfish that Cas solemnly thanked before beheading and cleaning.

That night they passed out in Bobby's cabin without even touching the TV.  Cas slept in the single bed by the window while Dean snored on the couch.  Their fatigue was a combination of travel stress, exposure, and the lack of easily accessible espresso on every street corner.

Cas had broiled the fish over a campfire, in coconut oil of course.  Dean had warmed up a container of baked beans he had made at home, from scratch, because Sam and Cas both insisted canned foods had unhealthy levels of bpa's, whatever that meant.  He grumbled about their "paranoia", but there was no sense in buying the canned beans if no one else was going to eat them, and Cas continued to defy the aging process with his perfect everything, so soaking dry beans overnight was probably worth it.

The next morning, as Dean slowly became conscious, he was greeted with the sight of shirtless Cas rummaging through their box of dry goods.  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, noting the delicious aroma of fresh coffee.  The motion attracted Cas's attention, and they were suddenly in a staring game of chicken.

Cas broke first.

"I made coffee. I'm sorry if this level of undress is inappropriate."

Dean let out a sputtery sigh.

"Cas, were dudes. We pee communally.  There's no such thing as inappropriate, until you start saying shit like 'I hope this level of undress isn't inappropriate'."

"I'm sorry. I don't have any previous trips like this to use as a reference.". Cas pulled some Lucky Charms out of the box, and eyed them with distaste.

"Don't silently hate on my cereal." Dean stood up and stretched his back, which was a little sore from the strange couch. "You want to go out on the lake again this morning?"

Cas was up for a morning on the water, so they loaded up and headed out after breakfast.  They day began dewey and cool, but got progressively hotter as it reached for its peak.  Cas began to squirm under the glare.  He eyed Dean's fishing rod with some dismay, as it remained still and unpulled for hours at a time.  Dean noticed his hateful glances.

"It's the process, Cas.  Not the end result."

"It is a somewhat boring process." Cas responded, with just a hint of shame buried in his eyes.  Dean just laughed.

"So what do you suggest?"

"I'd like to swim."

Dean shrugged and wheeled in his line.  He then grabbed the oars and pulled them back towards the shore with a series of easy yet powerful strokes.  Cas watched intently.  When they were close enough to feel the boat catching on the sandy bottom, Dean began tossing their belongings onto the beach.  The fishing rod, tackle box, Harry Potter, their sweatshirts and shoes all got bailed out.  Dean finally stripped off his shirt and chucked it into a bush.  He looked at Cas expectantly. Cas obediently rid himself of his shirt, tossing it into the bush behind Dean's.  They started at each other for a moment, before Dean remembered his shoes, and shucked those off as well.

With all their valuables disposed of. Dean rowed them back into the deeper water.  Cas stood without warning when the urge struck him, and dove smoothly out of the boat.  Dean docked the oars and pouted as he rocked back and forth through the aftereffects, until Cas resurfaced, a short distance away.

" We were going to play sink the boat. You bailed too early."

"How do you play?" He tread water and cocked his head so that little rivulets flowed over his face towards his right cheek.

"Well it's made up. There aren't rules. We just pull the plug and rock the boat until we're forced to bail out. It used to be the only way I could get Sam to forget about the cold and get his head wet"

"Okay. Pull the plug."  Dean shrugged and popped out the stopper.  The boat began to fill.

Cas swam over and pulled himself back into the boat, Dean instinctively lunging to the opposite side to counterbalance.  Despite his effort, Cas’s return to the boat brought with it a quick gush of water over the edge.  When he was finally seated upright on his bench across from Dean, the water had risen up to the top of his shins.  Though Dean had previously suggested rocking was in order, he was looking Cas over now in a state of calm.  

Cas was wet, his hair slicked back in whatever jaunty angle he burst from the water at.  He was surprisingly tan and even more surprisingly muscled.  Dean didn’t want to be weird about it, but he was fighting the urge to blatantly check out Cas’s abs.  He settled for staring towards Cas’s face, and putting all of his mental energy into examining the rest of the images provided by his peripheral vision.  Cas was a great specimen.  Dean could admit that.  He was just as apt at determining when another man was well-put together as any girl was at pointing out another beautiful girl.  Though between women that realization was usually put into the form of a compliment, while men weren’t likely to ever admit, “like OMG, Cas, you look so freaking amazing half-naked and wet!”

While Dean considered the stark lack of acceptable positive or encouraging words in popular male culture, Cas watched them both slowly sink into the lake, and marveled at the masochistic calm of Dean’s features.  

The boat finally slipped completely under the surface.  Dean lunged down to grab it, as if being awakened from a trance.  Cas swam aside to wait for instructions, not wanting to stumble blindly over some longstanding Winchester sink-the-boat tradition.  A moment later the craft resurfaced, breaching like a triumphant baby whale, and landing with a smack, upside-down.  Without thinking Cas ducked underneath it.

Dean should have been startled by Cas’s sudden appearance in his little air-bubble under the boat, but it didn’t phase him.  They were only a few feet apart, and enough sunlight was reflected through the water around them to light up the inside of their new hide-out, like some cramped but mystical sea-cave.  Dean smiled as he remembered Sam using this part of the game to whisper confessions about lost homework or a girl he liked who told him he stunk.  Cas looked around at the web of ever-changing patterns being reflected above them, as if they were in their very own laser light show.  Finally, prompted by his aptitude for intuiting what Dean required of him at all times, he broke the silence.

“Would you like to go into Hogsmeade with me?”

“The one at Universal Studios?”

“No. I forgot the name of the town we are closest to.”

Dean scissored and scooped the water and hoped with all his might that he would never forget the surreal lighting or the gentle lapping of the water, or the overall absurdity of Cas’s invitation.

………………………………..

Hogsmeade was actually called Old Forge, and Cas waited until they were parked outside the decrepit grocery store to admit he was primarily interested in finding a breakfast cereal not comprised entirely of cane sugar and corn syrup.  Dean would have pouted, but they were both a little pink after a couple days in the sun and an impromptu swim, so he grabbed them a bottle of aloe vera.  His phone buzzed in his pocket as he approached the checkout counter.  It buzzed again.  It continued to vibrate, irregularly but insistently.  He didn’t like messing with his phone in front of people, but curiosity got the better of him just as Cas sidled up behind him in line.

Dean had apparently been out of cell service while at the cabin, and his texts were all coming in at once, which didn’t exactly explain the amount he was receiving.  He wasn’t a big texter in general, and most of his friends knew he was out of town.  He began to read through, chronologically, and his face went white.

……………………………...

“What in god’s name possessed us to go fishing, anyway?”

Dean slammed his fist against a dark-grained wood panel in Castiel’s study.  The room was big and smelled like leather and lingering, antique masculinity.  The panel didn’t budge, and neither did Cas wince sympathetically as Dean shook his hand out in pain.

“I’m sorry, Dean.  You haven’t provided me with a document containing the full legal names and addresses of all the people it’s now the hospital’s priority to save above all others. I’ve had my hands full just responding to calls for Winchesters.  I see it was wrong of me to grant myself a vacation.”

Castiel stood in the doorway, tense with concern and genuine self loathing.  They had rushed back from their trip, leaving directly from the grocery store to drive to Mercy General, where they found Bobby Singer in a bed, beeping and cussing about how there was no need to broadcast the working of his innards for everyone on the floor to hear like a damn disco.  Dean and Cas had missed the initial attack, and been driving during the touch-and-go phase after his emergency surgery.  They visited as much as the surly man would allow, but it wasn’t long before they were walking out of the hospital, each harboring a great deal of pent-up anxiety, which was now finding release in Cas’s study.

“Shit.  I know.  Damnit!  I can’t ask you to do that.  I’m sorry.”

“It would be an impossible request.”

“I said I’m sorry, man.”  Dean tried to soften his tone, but he was still feeling punchy.

“I am not angry with you.  I’m frustrated because I can’t do it.  I’m trying to help you more, and I can’t, and it’s…distressing.”

Dean looked up at Cas, and squinted.  The man was a friend.  A new friend.  And there he stood in his own home, agonizing over his inability to make Dean’s life easier.  

“You can’t do that anymore.  I didn’t ask for this whole gaurdian angel thing.  Don’t get me wrong - it’s awesome.  But I don’t understand it and I didn’t ask for it.”

Cas wiped his palms together, then dropped his hands to his side.  They brushed against his trench coat, which he must have been wearing as a security blanket, seeings as they were indoors in fair weather.  Cas stood quietly, and Dean was struck with the sudden fear that maybe his friend was a little unhinged.  Maybe his willingness to help Dean was an obsession.

“That’s what I don’t understand.  People die on me every day.  And others live.  Why am I so stuck on saving Dean Winchester?”  The calm of Cas’s voice and the honesty of his question soothed Dean’s stalker paranoia.  Cas didn’t know what was happening to him anymore than Dean did, but he was willing to examine it.  A true psycho would likely err on the side of denial..

“Are you gay?”

“I don’t like labels.  But I’m fairly certain I’m wrestling with a void that’s larger than a penis... Why?”

“Your fucking blue eyes show up in my dreams a lot.  Does that make me gay?”  Dean meant it as a joke, but it was a dangerous thing to joke about.  And Cas had been far too adept at ignoring Dean’s attempts at humor and zeroing in on the grains of truth buried in his jests.

“I don’t know.  I don’t like labels.  It’s flattering.  Perhaps it’s symbolic of something.”

“Awesome.”

They side-eyed each other, and Dean cracked a harried grin.  The tip of Cas’s nose was sunburned and Dean’s ratty sneakers had fishgut smeared on the toe.

“C’mon. We gonna hug it out?”

“Maybe after a few drinks..”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Dean led the way to Cas’s old Ford, and jumped in the passenger seat.  They drove downtown and parked in a garage, neither one of them believing for a moment that they would be driving home later that evening.  They entered the first bar that didn’t look like it was trying to attract 18 year olds with its decor, and proceeded to drink themselves into a new place.

…………………………..

Cas stumbled backwards over the arm of the couch, then climbed his torso up to the other arm with the backs of his shoulders, groaning with vertigo.

"It's pitch dark in here.  Dude where are you?"

"I'm in bed," Cas rumbled, his eyes squeezed shut in the dark.

"Where is there even a bed?" Dean mumbled, his powers of complaint heightened by alcohol.  "Oh, hey, couch. I'm out." Dean collapsed face first onto Cas, eliciting more whines out of both parties.  Dean fleetingly wondered why he hadn’t given the cab driver his own address.  Despite their frequent social dates, he had only been to Cas’s house a handful of times.

"Cas, don’t you have a bed?" Dean groaned into Cas's neck, squirming until he realized how flush their similarly sized bodies were pressed against each other. He breathed in the scent if his friend, dark beer, some kind of classy cologne and bergamot oil (he knew of bergamot from a hair product he'd used, not because he drank so much earl grey) and Cas decided to arch his back when Dean's nose made contact with the sensitive skin of his neck.

"Dean, go away." Cas rumbled.

"I'm the guest. You go away. Stop humping me."

Cas's arched back had started to undulate, burrowing himself deep into the worn cushions, Dean's dead weight relentless above him.  

"Seriously, man. You can't sleep like this. You're still wearing your fucking trenchcoat." Dean made a great effort to sit up on his knees, but the couch was too narrow, and one of them dug sharply into Cas's thigh.  Cas breathed in through his teeth and crunched forward in pain.  Dean took advantage, grabbing a handful of the man's ridiculous coat, he hoisted it over his head.  His loose tee shirt came with it, and Dean was suddenly straddling half-naked Cas.  It was too dark for him to know that, until he twisted to toss the clothes to the side and brushed his knuckles against Cas's rock solid core.

"Holy shit, Cas. You got a weigh-in coming up?" Dean pushed his fingers over Cas's stomach and found nothing but rippling abs. "This a midlife crisis thing?" Dean kept petting the abdomen of his drunk friend, until Cas let out a rumble that sounded suspiciously like a purr.

"Dean, you need to stop." He all but whispered.

"Cas. You need to eat something.  It's not right to walk around this ripped just for the fun of it."

"Well I've been spending more time at the gym lately." He set himself up on his elbows and let his head loll back, though Dean could only feel his change of posture in the motion of the couch cushions and the flex under his fingertips.

"Yeah well. It's not like I want you to stop coming but-" Dean sat back and put his hands on his hips.

"And I do not want you to stop touching me." Cas breathed out, then pressed his face into the back of the couch, hiding as if this revelation would magically expose him by turning the lights on.

The room remained pitch black, which was cryptonite to those already teetering on the edge of being able to separate their drunken fantasies from reality.  Dean was stone silent as he moved his hands over Cas's abs once again, then slid them slowly up to his chest, getting no immediate reaction.  When Cas wasn't speaking, Dean forgot he was there, too focused on his body to remember it was attached to a conscious human.  Meanwhile Cas was drunk enough that he felt completely at liberty to imagine Dean was touching him with intent.  It was something he'd already practiced in his most private moments, and it was good enough to be considered a missed opportunity if he didn't take advantage of the solid weight above him now. He sighed happily and subtly lifted his hips into Dean's.

"Seriously, Cas? You're gonna get off on this?"

Cas froze. Dean sounded more mystified than disgusted.

"I’m drunk.  And you're a beautiful man.  And you are touching me." Cas hoped the rest could go unspoken, and that this whole wonderful exchange of friction would be chalked up to uncontrollable physical reactions.

The words hit Dean like a 15lb. psychology textbook to the temple.  All those times that Cas had claimed indifference had never phased him, because Cas didn’t flirt with women and he didn’t flirt with men.  He just existed and squinted and ignored the suggestive comments about his sex hair or how nice he smelled.  But Cas wasn’t indifferent to physical pleasure, he was unconcerned with the sex of the person he was deriving it from.  Dean knew he was pretty hot.  Apparently Cas knew it too - and how could he not after Dean rubbed his face in it for the whole weekend?  They’d practically been reenacting a sexy calendar together the whole time, splitting wood, rowing boats, fishing and starting fires.

Dean had a sudden sickening realization that this must be what it was like for a girl who just wanted to be friends with a guy.  Except those girls knew what was going on from day one.  They probably never drunkenly gave the “friend zone” speech to their geeky admirers while straddling their hard-ons.  If they did, they were giant cock-teases.  Like Dean.  Dean cringed into the dark and felt a wave of shame roll over his face, into his chest and out his hands, which he clasped involuntarily into Cas’s shoulder and bicep.

"Oh God, Cas.  I’m sorry." Dean breathed in some stuffy air, then bailed on the whole couch situation, rolling off of Cas, onto the floor, but catching his elbow on the coffee table on the way down.  He yelped in pain.

“Wait, Dean.  No.” Cas reached out as he felt him dismount and caught Dean’s wrist, which was speeding towards the floor.  This brought Cas around and on top of Dean in a flash.  Dean groaned with the sudden weight of his friend, and Cas groaned in surprise, and a little dismay at how perfectly their bodies slotted together, even on the hard floor.  Knowing Dean, being able to watch him and become his friend, made it very difficult to get himself to want anyone else.  Cas had never been one to “settle”.  But even inebriated, he knew where the conversation was headed.

“Cas.  I’m so sorry.” Dean said again, closing his eyes to the dark, unnecessarily.

“I am currently crushing you, and should probably be the one apologizing.”  He felt around in the dark for the coffee table, then shoved it away from the couch, giving himself room to roll onto the floor beside Dean.

Dean felt the loss of Cas’s heat immediately.  It jarred him away from his frantic search for a way to explain to Cas that he’d just had an epiphany about what a horrible friend he had been.  Cas interrupted.

“No, I apologize, Dean.  I understand that my bisexuality would make you uncomfortable.  I’m sorry for acting inappropriately.  I have not had this much to drink in a great while.”  Beautiful Cas, still sounded like an android while drunk on the floor.

“Dude. I’m open.  I mean, I’m not biased.  I’m totally cool with anyone liking anything.  Anything that’s legal.  You know what I mean.”  Did Cas know what he meant?  Did Dean know, really?  “Sex is great.  The more people you can have it with, the better, right?”  Dean gestured into the darkness as he spoke, then rested his hand on his stomach, with surprising results.  It turned out his mouth had better communication with his dick than his brain did, because all this dark and stormy rubbing and had awakened more than just his self loathing.  

What the what?

Okay.  No big deal.  He had just said he was okay with it.  He was okay with it for Cas and he’d be okay with it if it were Sam so he couldn't exactly act like it was a disaster of epic proportions for himself.  What was porn, anyway?  There was often a guy, sometimes two guys involved, and he got off on their pleasure just as much as the girl’s .  So yeah, he just got hard while petting a guy in the dark.  So what?  It was the power of suggestion.  Of all the things that turned Dean on, anticipation of sex was the top of the list.  He was drunk, and skin to skin with the guy.  That was pretty much the recipe for Dean’s boner, except with an extra boner to boot.  Bonus.  A bonus boner.

The absurdity of this added anatomy helped him kick the rest of his reservations out the window.  He’d find them tomorrow on his way out.  For the moment he was slightly aroused by a very aroused Castiel Novak.  To leave them both like this so that they could have drunken banter about the importance of their friendship would be in direct opposition to Dean’s intoxicated life plan.  In an impressive feat of core strength, he rolled himself back onto his friend.

“Dean?”  Cas breathed in as he said it.  Dean couldn’t lie to himself. Hearing his friend so wrecked over him made him feel like a million bucks.  In all the time he’d know him, Cas had never gotten worked up over anything or anyone.  Now he was practically shivering, all because of Dean.

“Relax, Cas.  I’m not totally sure how this works, but I think I have a pretty good idea.”  Dean leaned forward and breathed on Cas’s collarbone while snaking a hand down to unbutton their pants, his own first, then Cas’s.  Cas reached his hands up and tentatively placed them on Dean’s waist.

“Dean?  Are you sure you know…?  Why are you -?”  He cut himself off with a quiet moan as Dean pulled open the front of his pants, then ground himself down onto Cas, slowly.

“Shit, Cas.  Never thought you could sound so sexy.”  Dean spoke to keep his mind from wandering into “what the fuck?” territory, trying to focus on how good it felt to be pressed between the heat of their warm bodies.  Cas raised his hips ever-so-slightly and let out another moan, perhaps a bit louder than before.  His fingers clenched into Dean’s waist, pulling them together in a rhythm that seemed to be agreeable for both of them.

“I’ve had a lot to drink.” Dean panted, in a moment of candor. “I think I’m going to need more than this.”  While he wasn’t used to being so open about what was working for him in bed, telling Cas what he was thinking was easy, because there was never any judgement.  He wasn’t sure how Cas would respond to his latest statement until he felt his slender fingers, slicked with spit, pulling down his boxer-briefs and taking both of them into his hand.  This was the pressure and slide that Dean needed.  He shut his eyes, which was nothing more than symbolic of his bliss, seeing that he hadn’t seen a thing since he walked into the room.  He let out a moan.  He fucked forward into Cas’s grip and instinctively leaned forward to… kiss?  He wasn’t sure, but when his cheek found Cas’s stubble it took him precariously close to pulling the self-destruct, so he settled for nuzzling his nose lightly into the bottom of his neck.

He felt Cas come in the hitch in his breathing and pulse, before he felt the added wetness that was immediately used to its full potential.

“Jesus.” He whispered into Cas’s ear.  Cas only breathed out in return, still pumping his slender fingers up and down Dean’s cock, matching the pace of Dean’s subtle hip thrusts.  Dean let out a chuckling sigh after he came, collapsing onto Cas one last time like dead weight.  He only stayed a moment before it felt too intimate and he rolled onto his back to feel around for the trench coat and tee-shirt he had divested Cas of previously.

“I’m going to find my bed.” Cas grumbled.

“Oh, now you remember you have a bed.” Dean sniped.  He didn’t appreciate the sudden coherency.  Coherency didn’t lead to experiences like they one they just shared.  But Cas made no move to sit up.  Dean wiped his own stomach down with Cas’s shirt before tossing it in Cas’s general direction. Cas grunted in thanks.  After a few moments he stood, and then he was gone.  Dean picked himself off the floor and fell onto the couch, alone this time.  And crusty.  But way too stubbornly drunk to worry about it before the next sunrise.

 


	6. When in doubt, italics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after is kind of a bitch, but it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not usually one for chapter notes, but I feel it is necessary to point out at this point that this chapter is short and nothing to write home about, and that it was taking way too long for me to update. Problem is, I started treating this fic like it was my end-all, epic, life-changing project. Which made me fear it. I have now reprogrammed myself to believe, more accurately, that this is entertainment, writing practice and carefree experimentation. I feel better, and the rest should come easier now. Ah hahaha. May you all come easier as well.

When Dean woke up that Sunday morning he was creaky and hungover. He pulled himself to a sitting position and breathed in deeply. Nothing smelled right. He stood up to find the bathroom and stubbed his toe on the side of the couch, the side table, a bookcase, and finally one of those large wooden globes that opens at the equator to reveal a fancy bottle of whiskey and eight glasses. He cursed his way into the bathroom, and continued his impressive string of obscenities when he discovered his boxer briefs were patchily stuck to his groin, as if by elementary school adhesive.

Dean drank for many reasons, but forgetting was never one of them. The night’s events came back to him like a dream, which he was 100% willing to question the accuracy of until he remembered that it had all taken place in the dark and all his hazy visual memories were simply products of his imagination.

He reached out and touched the tiled wall over the toilet for support as he pissed. His mind was flooded as he quickly came up with a hierarchy of issues that needed to be addressed. He needed to check-up on Bobby, first and foremost. He groaned and thudded his fist gently into the wall as he chastised himself for feeling momentarily relieved when he had remembered Bobby’s predicament, and let it usurp all thoughts of Cas and Cas’s voice and Cas’s abs and Dean’s new secret ability to get off in the dark, on his best friend.

The smell of strong coffee drew him to the kitchen, where Cas was already sitting, shirtless in a pair of flannel pajama pants, staring out the window above the sink. His eyes darted to Dean as a floorboard creaked in the doorway.

“Dean?”

“Yeah. Coffee?” Dean walked in and started brazenly opening cabinets, looking for a mug.

“I didn’t realize you were still here.” Cas’s eyes followed Dean’s every movement, as if the observation of the slightest hitch would reveal something important.

“It’s early. I’m probably still drunk.” Dean poured himself a cup and glanced over the lip of his mug as he sipped it. He paused, then strode confidently over to the seat across from Cas, and sat down.

“Not really. I mean, I remember everything.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You missing anything?” Dean tapped his temple and raised his eyebrows with the question.

“No. I don’t believe so.” Cas stared him down, intensity only dampened by a mix of wonder of concern.

“Well bully for us.” Dean broke eye contact, and stared at nothing while he took a singing gulp of coffee.

They drank their coffee in a silence that would have been awkward if either of them were willing to admit the other was there. Dean finally stood and placed his empty mug in the sink.

“You work today?” He questioned gruffly, with his back to Cas.

“We were on a fishing trip.” They had not been scheduled to return for another three days. Dean cringed.

“I’m gonna go check on Bobby. I’ll call you later.”

With that, he exited.

…………………………………………….

_“They’ll find out about our little smooch.”_

_“How?”_

_“I’ll tell them.”_

_“You wouldn’t dare. And why should they believe you?”_

_“Aw, c’mon, Jethro, you didn’t think I’d let such a momentous occurrence pass by without getting a picture for the scrapbook, did you? You need to help me come up with the perfect caption.”_

_Crowley wiggled his phone in front of Bobby, just out of his reach._

_Bobby hung his head in a moment of despair. Their moment of indiscretion had actually been orchestrated and documented by his nemesis. Now Crowley held the power to .._

_to…_

_...embarrass him amongst his friends, especially the ones who knew his first wife and would be confused by this sudden shift in sexual orientation and begin to question his past relationships. They would think she had just been a beard and that he didn’t really love her. Even though he had dated since her death, this wasn’t the same. A man like Crowley was so vastly different from his late wife that he would not be able to justify his attraction to both. People would think he was some kind of indiscriminate weirdo who was happy to shtup anyone who -_

Sam stared at the screen in front of him, utterly stumped. He had been trying to finish the epic gay romance of Crowley and Bobby, and just as they butted heads in real life, they were also refusing to come together smoothly within his assignment. He scrunched his face up in despair and wondered if the beginnings of a migraine were infiltrating his brain due to stress, or maybe just guilt that he was writing amateur romantic literature about someone who was currently recovering from a traumatic cardiac episode.

A rustle outside the office and a grunt alerted him to Dean’s presence at the gym. Sam minimized his work and rolled away from the screen, eager to put some distance between himself and the world’s most useless homework assignment.

“Hey, Dean. How’s Bobby? I told him I’d take him lunch at 1:00.”

“He’s good.” Dean swung a chair around and quickly sat, sliding himself to the front desk computer and opening a couple of browser windows at once. He began to type away, not looking in Sam’s direction.

“Okay. So. How was your trip?”

“Fine.” Dean continued to stare intently at his monitor.

“Fishing? Campfires? Roasting marshmallows? Just fine? Did Cas mess it up somehow? Those are like your top three favorite activities.” Sam tilted his head, eyes beginning to bore through Dean’s overly crisp exterior.

“Cas was fine.” Dean’s typing somehow became more staccato, as if his fingers were a couple of very dainty, disgruntled ponies. Sam decided to switch gears.

“Hey I cut it off with Ruby.” Dean finally stopped typing and looked over at his brother.

“Ruby? The Demon Blood chick?”

“Yeah.” Sam began to blush slightly. “She came to see Bobby in the hospital right after it happened. She brought him a can of Demon Blood and then tried to pull me into a supply closet.”

For the first time since his arrival, feeling seemed to seep into Dean’s features. It was a magic dance between his conflicting emotions, and only Sam could read it in the microseconds it took to pass over his face - God that’s hot - What a bitch - You could do so much better - Is it wrong to ask for her number? When his face settled it landed on the standard big-brother look of condescending amusement and empathy. Sam welcomed it over the robot that had come in five minutes prior, so he willingly led them into a predictable banter about his total lack of game and is inevitable descent into involuntary celibacy.

……………………………….

Dean had honestly welcomed Sam’s presence at the gym, initially, thanking whoever for putting a distraction there to keep him from having some sort of internal crisis or googling “am I gay?” on a work computer. He probably wouldn’t have done that. He didn’t after Sam left. He didn’t after Ash relieved him and he drove home to his stale apartment.

_It’s no big deal_ , his brain kept supplying, like a mantra. But mantra’s are rythmic and Dean loved music and soon it all became white noise that was overrun with some rather uncomfortable logic.

_Cas is a guy. Cas is a friend. Cas is a one night stand. Does it matter that Cas is a guy? No. Cas is a one night stand, and no one ever knows any of my one night stands. But Cas is a friend. Fine. He can stay that way. If that’s not good enough for Cas then Cas can screw off. What’s he gonna do? Accuse me of friend-zoning him? Yeah, no. There’s a 100% chance that Cas has no idea what the “friend-zone” even is. He was drunk. I was drunk. He’ll get it._

He fell asleep that night with his mind floating somewhere between _Cas is a friend_ and _Cas can screw off_ and woke with a hard-on that didn’t seem to care that a screwing-off Cas had wormed his way into the three-ring porn circus that was Dean’s imagination.


	7. Don't tell Pam...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where Dean glosses over a gay panic and gets addicted to explicit fan fiction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's been forever. BUT here is a new chapter, with hopefully more to come. In all honesty, my best friend attacked my brother-in-law's girlfriend and girlfriend's sister and that's depressing so I can't sleep so back to fan fiction and other activities that don't involve having a real life friend to hang out with and confide in, or whatever. I kind of just want to move into this AU.
> 
> As always, very much dialogue and not technically enough action but we do what we want *random gang signs with my hands*

Sam sat at the front desk of Winchester Iron, and stared at the wall.  It was something he did a lot now that he didn’t have to worry about surprise visits from Ruby.  Though the constant threat of Ruby’s booty calls had been invigorating, it had also left Sam with a list of anxieties, ranging from fear of discovery to nervousness about his breath or body odor.  So now he stared at the wall and tried to figure out what was up with Dean.

It didn’t seem like Dean was acting any differently than usual.  He showed up at the same time and he worked out at the same time and he joked with the same members.  Yeah, he was noticeably tense for a while after Bobby’s heart thing, but even that wore off, eventually.  After a few cancelled movie nights he seemed to get things back on track.  And why had he cancelled movie night, anyway?  It’s not as if they were keeping constant vigil at Bobby’s bedside.  The man had recovered well, according to his doctors.  And now come to think of it, Cas had come in to inquire about Bobby’s well-being a couple of times after it happened, and Dean had barked at him rather uncharacteristically.

Well maybe Dean was just uncomfortable confronting the idea of death, now that he was getting older.  Yeah, that was probably it.

……………………………………………

_Dean: What gets blood stains out of memory foam?_

_Cas: Nothing.  An elephant never forgets._

_Dean: Real helpful._

_Cas: I’m at work._

_Dean: So you’re sitting around waiting for someone to choke on a ham sandwich._

_Cas: Statistically roast beef is the most common culprit._

_Cas: Why is there blood?_

_Dean: You’re the doctor.  You tell me._

_Cas: I was asking about the mattress._

_Dean: Oh. Cuticle. Gone way wrong.  Toe cuticle._

_Cas: And I thought I was impervious to feeling nausea._

Dean chuckled at Cas’s last text and Googled “memory foam cleaning”.  The texting was their new thing.  Neither one of them had claimed to be a big texter before, but after the incident (as Dean liked to call it, in his mind) they suffered through a fog of awkwardness that seemed to finally part when Dean texted Cas with a anatomy question that he needed answered in order to settle an argument with Sam.  They bantered a bit.  Dean smiled at his phone, and remembered why he was friends with Cas in the first place.  Then Sam asked about movie night, and Dean reinstated it.  It was the first time he and Cas had purposefully been together socially and he felt better having Sam there as a buffer.  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hang out with Cas.  He actually missed the guy quite a bit.  But he really didn’t want to have a talk of any kind.  Sam’s oblivious presence seemed to get that message across, and Cas never dropped any hints about wanting to hash things out.

What was there to hash out?  Cas was bi and he thought Dean was hot.  Dean didn’t think about Cas like that, but his body apparently wasn’t homophobic.  And also, Cas smelled pretty nice, which is really a main factor when you’re drunkenly groping around in the dark.  Regardless, Dean was pretty sure this kind of thing happened between soldiers, sometimes.  Probably.  He had gotten weird vibes walking in on a few dudes before. He ignored it. It wasn't the kind of thing you dwelled on after considering the sacrifice of a serviceman. They all had their vices.  Mostly alcohol, and then whatever happened after alcohol.  The more stress you put your body under, the more it needed release, and the less it cared about where it found it.  Or something like that.

So Bobby going into the ER wasn't exactly the same as navigating an active minefield, but it was stressful. And Dean and Cas just ended up being a little too "there" for each other.  Neither of them were attached at the time, so no harm no foul.

...............

Sam stared at his assignment and pouted. Basically it was asking him to psychoanalyze the ridiculous love story between Bobby and Crowley that he has turned in two weeks ago (cringing as he clicked "send").  As far as he was concerned it was just some made-up crap that he'd thrown together with the gym as a convenient backdrop. It was easy to find drama, because if Bobby suddenly came out as being gay with Crowley, there’d be drama aplenty.  But there was no deeper meaning.

Apparently Professor Rosen had anticipated this complaint.  She had supplied him with a list of questions to answer  that etched his cringe lines even deeper into his forehead.

_Question 1: Which character did you more closely identify with in your story?_

"Uh, neither?" Sam mumbled to himself.  

Dean looked up from his paperwork to glance at Sam's screen.

"You were totally Bobby."

Sam sputtered and tried to minimize his browser.

"Chill out, Samantha. I've been reading your email for weeks."

"What? Why?!"

"Because you leave yourself logged in to every single browser you use.  I could probably pull it up at the library right now.  I read all that romance crap you had open on my laptop the other day too."

Sam's spluttering turned smug.

"You know those were all gay romance, right? It was assigned.  For a class..." Sam spun around to study Dean's reaction.

"Yeah I got that. But it was Dr. Sexy. And porn.  And some of those writers really nailed the characters. I started thinking some of it could actually happen on the show. But it's not like they'd ever actually have the balls to go gay, right?"

"Have the balls to go gay...?" Sam echoed, still staring at Dean.

"Yeah, you know. Everyone wants to act like being gay is all mainstream now, but they'd never pull the old switcheroo on a character like Dr. Sexy. People would lose their shit."

"Dean."

Dean had gone back to reading through the gym's attendance statistics.  He finished scanning the page before turning to face Sam.

"Yeah?"

"What. The. Fuck?"

"Come again? And don't swear at the desk."

Sam opened his mouth.  He gaped for a moment, then closed it back down.  He tilted his head like there was water in his ear.

"Did you seriously become socially enlightened just by reading my emails?"

"What did you think I'm some kind of homophobe?  Real nice, Sammy."

"No no no. I just... Didn't think you'd be so ... Okay with reading gay Dr. Sexy fan fiction."

"I didn't think you'd have such a problem with it. It's reading crap about fake people on the internet not going to clubs and banging dudes.  You are so the Bobby in your story."

"What? How?"

"It was all Bobby's internal struggle and worrying about what people would think and agonizing over the memory of his wife. 100% chick flick, and therefore 100% Sam."

Dean cocked an imaginary finger gun and shot his little brother.

"Better than being Crowley."

"In reality, sure. But you wrote him to be kind of great."

"Dean, I'm seriously concerned about your sanity."

"It's YOUR sanity, Samsquantch. In your story Crowley didn't give a fuck what anyone thought. He wanted something. He didn't question himself for wanting it.  He got it. The end.

"Ugh. You better be talking about Sam's homework and not the real Crowley."

Jo popped up on the other side of the counter with a grin.  Sam started so hard his chair tipped over, spilling 6' 4" of surprised anger onto the floor with a thwack.  Dean pointed and laughed while his brother flailed.

"How...?!"

"You're logged into your Google docs on every computer in a five mile radius, as far as I can tell.  Bobby threatened to read all the juicy parts to me if I didn't make weight last Friday."

At this, Sam groaned, covering his face with his hands and rolling around on the floor in simulated agony.  Dean stood up and stepped over him to get a better look at his homework questionnaire.

"C'mon, Jo. Let's finish this quiz while he cries like a little boy."

Jo stuck her tongue out at Sam before hopping up on the counter, eager to find more ammunition for teasing within Dr. Rosen's assignment.

.......................

_Dean: Sam just found out we all read his epic romance._

_Cas: Do I need to come shock him back to life? Should I employ the sirens?_

……………

“So, Dean. How single are you?”

Dean gulped.  Lisa was standing on the other side of the counter with a mischievous smirk on her face, and he was experiencing conflicting emotions of intrigue, and fear that his gentlemanly boss routine would soon fall by the wayside.

“I’m as single as they come.  Unlike you…?”

“Haha I’m asking for some friends.”

“Friends in plural?  Do tell.”  He gave her a naughty wink.

“Jesus, who knows.  PROBABLY not asking for them both, simultaneously.  More like… well they’re kind of sick of their usual scene so I told them I’d take them out and introduce them to some new people, just to see what happens.”

Dean thought about Lisa’s boyfriend, Victor.  He was a clean-cut cop type by day and a burly biker by night.  But it was cool. Dean could hang with the best (or worst).  It’d be a nice chance to dust off his leather jacket.

“And this is a weird question, but do you know any guys who would want to meet… a guy?”

Dean snapped out of his wardrobe daydream and dialed back in to Lisa as she chewed her bottom lip.

“Uh. I own a gym.  I know a lot of gay men.”

“Right but those are the same guys I know from working at a gym and none of them seem quite right for Benny.  He’s…. Well, it doesn’t matter.  It’s too bad your friend Cas isn’t gay.”

Dean licked his lips, answering before he could consider the full implications.

“Cas is into dudes.  He’s equal opportunity.”

“Oh.”  Lisa quirked her lips and tilted her head as if she were considering something sad for a moment. “Well I was thinking we could all go out on Thursday and do karaoke or something.  Do you think Cas would come?”

Dean blinked.

“Probably.”

“Great!  I was thinking we’d go to the Roadhouse.  Probably meet up around 9pm.”

“Uh, yeah.  I’ll text and make sure he isn’t on-call then.”  Dean knew very well that Cas wasn’t on call, because Thursday was their next movie night.  That meant he’d have to cancel it if he wanted to come through for Lisa, and that he’d have to invite Cas to the bar with them.

“You are awesome, Dean.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”  She spun away from the counter and began to head to the locker room. “And maybe don’t mention to Pam that Cas is into women too,” she called over her shoulder, “She somehow always talks her way into threesomes.”

With that, Lisa pushed into the locker room and Dean was left with a wandering mind and the suggestion that he and Cas were going to be somehow cajoled into a threesome with the elusive Pam character.  

Considering that he had already gotten off on Cas without the excuse of a beautiful woman, it was not very difficult to imagine the orgy that would result with the addition of one.  He wondered who would be in charge.  Probably Pam.  She sounded like a spitfire. He wondered what Pam would want to do.  Would she want both men working on her at the same time?  That seemed like the most obvious route.  But what if she had some kind of power kink?  Maybe she’d take turns with each of them, before insisting they make out with each other as she leered from the edge of the bed.  Whose bed?  Probably hers.  Dean hadn’t even gotten to see Cas’s room, and there was no way he’d bring a girl AND Cas back to his place.  That would probably end movie night for real.  It’d almost be worth it if they managed to play out that one threesome scene from that Dr. Sexy space orgy he had been reading about the other night.  But then again, gravity.  At first Dean hadn’t thought he’d be able to handle the good doctor as a bottom, but then it didn’t really count because he was balls deep in a hot nurse at the same time so…

It was all becoming very workplace inappropriate, and Dean suddenly tried to rub his mind clean by massaging his temple.

 


	8. Hit me with your best smut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is busy friend-zoning himself while Dean and Cas prepare for their big blind date night.
> 
> A.K.A. The chapter where every paragraph wanted to start with the word "so".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I often wonder why I can finish fan fictions (slowly - but they do get finished) whereas I can't finish my own original works. Yes, I'm borrowing already created characters, so that's a huge benefit, but I think a bit more of it has to do with the frivolity of fanfic. This story can go completely cray-cray and I can just laugh and say "well that's what I wanted. Deal with it!" Whereas I treat my original fiction like it's the word of God being channeled through my hesitant fingers. 
> 
> Not that I am in any way against any of you voicing your, "hey now, this has gone cray-cray" opinions in the comments. Feedback is great, and it helps turn this guilty-pleasure of a habit into a learning experience.
> 
> *rainbow*

Sam was completely enamored of Jess. She was cool. She was pretty. She had all these cute mannerisms that no one ever wrote-in for the girls in the movies. She moved her eyebrows a lot and chewed her lip in two different ways that indicated two very different emotions. She sometimes broke an awkward silence with a little fart noise. Other times she’d whinny like a horse. She liked bad puns, and she especially liked fake-punching Sam in the shoulder the more he insisted that her puns were terrible. Sam had met a lot of nice girls in his time, and also Ruby, but his friendship with Jess was beginning to make the standard very nice, pretty girl seem like a cardboard cutout in comparison. Jess was vibrant. She called him out when she thought he was being judgmental or condescending. She got moody and had bad days. She’d even cancelled plans on him once or twice, to veg out with a needy friend or because she “felt like crap.” She wasn’t at his beck and call like a pet and she never seemed to have any expectations for Sam. She was straightforward and honest and it was just that easy, from day one.

Sam hated himself for thinking about it this way, but to him, Jess was a real person, like Dean or Bobby or Jo. Not that other girls weren’t real people. Sam just had trouble imagining what they did at night or who they talked to or what they talked about. Jess, on the other hand, had a knack for saying what Sam was already thinking. She had the same effortless style as Sam, and she didn’t fuss over herself. But she was always gorgeous.

So, Sam was screwed. He didn’t know the first thing about planning a seduction. As it was that word sounded sleazy in his head. To seduce someone sounded as if one were tricking them somehow, only revealing that which would appear most attractive to them. Maybe Sam wanted to woo her. Right. Like on a horse? Or maybe with a boom box under her window some night. He _could_ dial it back a little and just try to flirt with her more, but at this point in their relationship it would either sound like a cheesy joke or toe the line of inappropriate. It wasn’t like they were the kind of friends who joked about sex all the time. Could he somehow just start wandering in that direction, very slowly, maybe?

Hey, he could just bring Dean along on one of their outings. The conversation would be pulled into the gutter real fast.

Sam winced. Dean was the solution to exactly zero relationship problems. Sam would, for the time being, continue to be screwed.

………………………………….

Cas: Question.

Dean: …?

Cas: Figuring out wording.

Dean: Dude just call.

Dean was standing, barefoot in his rather sterile kitchen, contemplating a Pop Tart. He was scheduled for an afternoon at the gym, and he had taken advantage of that, continuing to sleep after his overnight guest had cleared out early that morning. She probably had to work. She had looked a little bit office-y. His phone rang.

“Hi Cas.”

“Hello, Dean.” Cas also sounded like he had just woken up, and gargled some Wild Turkey and a peach pit. Dean could picture him immediately, hair mussed, with that air of annoyance he wore in the morning like a cologne, even though he never ended up expressing his displeasure with anything more than a slow coffee pot.

“What’s up?”

Cas hummed, or maybe his neighbor was mowing the lawn.

“Or do you just want to text me?”

“I’m curious about this date on Thursday.”

“Yeah what about it?” Dean stepped his ankles crossed and leaned his lower back against the counter.

“Are Lisa’s friends seeking out one-time encounters or are they interested in forming lasting romantic relationships?”

Dean paused with his coffee cup already tilted towards his lips.

“Yeah that would have been a weird text.”

“What?”

Dean put his mug down and waved his comment out of the air.

“I dunno, Cas. Do you want me to ask Lisa? She’s got a class tonight.”

Cas hummed again. Or someone was priming a weed whacker.

“Well what is your impression, Dean?”

Dean cringed.

“I, uh, I’m going as a favor to Lisa, so it’s probably better if I don’t mess with her friend. But then again if this girl seems to be on the same page as me, then we’re all good.”

“All good…” Cas echoed.

“Well yeah. She’s probably gonna be into me. I’m adorable.”

Cas groaned out a goodbye and Dean hung up, smirking at himself. He was adorable. Hell, he was damned near irresistible. The chick from last night hadn’t even been on the prowl - she was just supposed to be meeting up with a girlfriend from work - but she couldn’t let an opportunity like Dean pass her by. Hell, Cas was a robot, and even he couldn’t resist, after a few drinks.

Record scratch. No one could resist Dean, including Cas. Up until that point, Dean had sheltered Cas from his sexy socializing the same way he kept Sam out of it. Dean was an adventurous guy, but he didn’t believe there was any part of getting laid that required an audience of family members or close friends. But on Thursday, Cas would be there, watching. Even if he didn’t want to see it, it’d all be there, happening right in front of him.

You know what? Pam and all her imaginative sex be damned. There was no way he could pick up a girl in front of Cas. It wouldn’t be right. If more straight guys drunkenly got off with their bi friends, NOT flaunting their hetero hook-ups afterwards would totally be established bro-code.

Dean tried to stop thinking about it, but the memory of last night’s conquest had already been booted out of his conscious mind to make way for the still so vivid muscle recollection of his night with Cas.

………………….

Jess and Sam had started jogging together, after she signed herself up for a half marathon on a dare. They’d meet at Winchester Iron and run around the neighborhood, using her phone to direct them on increasingly longer routes. Jess liked to run without music. Sam thought that was ridiculous, but he also left his earbuds out, partially because he was nervous he’d begin singing along but more because he wasn’t sure the wrong song wouldn’t spark a fit of emo Tourrettes and he’d end up screaming “I LOVE YOU!” at her bobbing ponytail.

As it was, his love for Jess was pretty much his internal mantra as he huffed away beside her.

This particular sunset, Just as they were rounding the corner of the gym at the end of their run, he caught his toe on the curb and the sole of his expensive Nike sneaker tore away from the body of the shoe.

“Goddamnit.” He limped a couple of steps, then pulled his flopping shoe off in frustration. Jess pranced back over to see what had happened. She stuck her bottom lip out when he showed her his predicament.

“Aw. Now you’re not going to be able to run with me!”

“Oh nooo…what a horrible travesty” Sam feigned sarcasm. Jess wrinkled her nose at him.

“Boooo. I hate you, sole-less Sam.” And with that she flounced into the gym, almost flouncing into a traditionally trenched Cas as he exited.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Hey, Cas.”

Though he had apparently been on his way home, Cas stood still next to Sam. It was typical of his oddball personality, and Sam found it somehow comforting.

“Cas, I have a problem.”

“Your shoe?”

“No. A real problem.”

“Ah. Yes. So do I.”

Sam squinted down at the older man for a moment and bit down hard on the urge to retort, " _just one?"_

“So what’s the answer?”

Cas flexed his jaw and let his gaze dart around the parking lot, seemingly clearing them for the rest of the conversation.

“Literature would have us believe that true, reciprocated passion simply happens if it’s supposed to. You never want to be that... cheese-dick who asks the girl if you can kiss her. But in practice, I have always felt cheated by the heat of the moment.”

Sam stared off into the sunset, letting Cas’s cryptic advice sink in. Sam prided himself on being  a nerd and a scholar. He was damned if he wouldn’t try to ponder it for a moment before asking for the play-by-play. Cas turned to face him before he was forced to inquire further.

“It’s easier to take one small step back than it is to jump ahead, prematurely, and be left trying to fill in the middle.”

“Premature is bad.” Sam nodded, sagely.

“Let me see your shoe. I may have a super adhesive that can fix your sole.”

………………………..

Bobby was holding the heavy bag and Jo was hitting it. He didn’t have many pointers to give her at that moment. Her form was always great, and she was doing the work more for cardio than technique at that moment. After another minute, she started to slack, and Bobby narrowed his eyes at her, knowing that as far as she was concerned, she was finished with the exercise.

“You hear Lisa invited Dean on her big date night?” The words came dryly out of Bobby like he was telling her about a recent Chevy recall. Jo responded with a mighty punch.

“Dude. Lisa’s got a boyfriend. That Victor guy. Right?” Thwack, bam, pow.

“Right. She’s setting Dean up with some Pam lady, and get this- she roped Cas in so she could introduce to him to a guy friend of hers.”

Jo dropped her arms to the side and stared at Bobby.

“Well that backfired,” he griped. Jo’s mouth hung open until the information was fully processed.

“I can't punch anymore.  I have to think."  Jo  continued to gape.  "Oh man, Bobby, this sucks.”

“Come on, now. You’re too young for Dean and you know it.” The man sighed as he grabbed a towel and began leading Jo to the sauna.

“No, I mean, I didn’t know he liked guys. This sucks for Cas.”

“Why? Lisa’s friend could be a real looker.” Bobby was cringing. He really didn’t seem to be comfortable with all the girl-talk he had just initiated with his student.

“Yeah right!” Jo scoffed. “Better looking than Dean? Not likely.”

Bobby stopped to consider this assumption that since Cas was attracted to men, he must have been pining for Dean since day one. He scowled.

“You know that you and Dean are never gonna happen, right?”

Jo blushed and set the timer on the sauna.

“Duh.”

“Well there. So does Cas.”

Jo shrugged and pulled the glass door open, letting a wave of steam out into the cool air of the gym.

“You never let me get to the real kicker. This lady Lisa’s setting him up with is apparently 40.”

“What?!” Jo screeched, just before the door clicked shut. Bobby chuckled and strolled away.

……………………………………….

So Dean was possibly addicted to gay porn. It’s not like he googled it or anything (well once, but that was a horrendous mistake). And it was ONLY because it was Dr. Sexy. He still couldn’t handle the idea of physically watching two porn star guys just having a few drinks and then going at it in a harshly lit and very fake living room. As it was, he had a hard time appreciating some of the time and effort that went into the fan art that so often accompanied the stories he had been reading. Nope. His gay porn habit was one step lamer, because it was in the form of amateurishly written prose.

The first story he read was rated T for Teen, and contained nothing more than some dudes making out. It had been one of Sam’s assigned readings, and Dean had laughed his way through from beginning to end. The writer had optimistically written the whole story as if all cultures assumed that every person on the planet was potentially bisexual, since the beginning of time. They had applied this science-fiction worthy lack of homophobia to the Dr. Sexy universe in order to get Dr. Sexy together with lab tech Collins. It was an interesting match-up, considering how 75% of the cast were playing the roles of highly educated, and very rich surgeons. It let the writer to use their differences in status and income to provide tension and drama, and completely ignored the fact that on TV, both characters were pretty serious womanizers.

Dean was weirdly fascinated. Why did this exist? It wasn’t as if there wasn’t a hot female lab tech on the show that the writer could have written the very same story about. Actually, her name was Nina, and she was smoking hot and half Latina. Furthermore, what was with the rating system? How raunchy did this stuff get? He did some exploring, and discovered it got just a raunchy as he could want it to, almost to a fault. And yet he still couldn’t figure out why there was all this emphasis on Dr. Sexy and tech Collins. So he kept poking around. He figured out that there were lots of other “pairings” that people fantasized about on the show, many of them more obvious, or at least heterosexual, but somehow the Sexy/Collins had the most devoted and eloquent followers.

It was around 2am when Dean stumbled into an omegaverse fic. It was 2:22am when discovered that nothing takes the edge off the description of dude on dude (dude IN dude?) anal sex quite like gushing self lubrication and the potential for male pregancy. What. The. Fuck.

The next morning he woke up and slunk into work, hung over from nothing more than staying up too late, and a soda he had drunk at like 11pm. No one really noticed, and by the mid afternoon he had sequestered himself in the office with one tab open to Sam’s email, one tab open to some MMA reporting site, and a third tab open to the fan fiction database he had been perusing the night before. Sam was studying for a final at the front desk, and it was a typically slow day of the week, which allowed Dean to get himself sucked into a 100,000 word tale of gay panic and smut that had him sucked in from chapter one. The writer was bitterly sarcastic and she (probably a she?) didn’t ignore the potential of characters who weren’t her main pairing. There was a lot of sex, hetero, homo and multi. By chapter three Dean was keeping meticulous notes on when and where the best smut occurred, for revisitation in privacy.

He tried not to think about how strange his new hobby was. It wasn’t that much different than watching porn. It was a lot easier to do in public. And with just a little guidance from a writer, and his imagination, he could watch all his favorite television actors get naked and have desperate, raunchy sex. As a bonus, it seemed to be mostly written by women. The more he thought about it, the more he figured it was sort of like watching a girl pleasure herself. Except instead of just watching a moaning vixen finger herself and look slyly into the camera, he had a front row seat to the porn that was actually getting HER off. Dean was a fan of frisky women, and these women were so brazen, they left a paper trail.

Cas would be proud, he thought as he efficiently typed *panty kink, chapter 4* into the notes section of his latest Bookmark. He was reading gay porn written for women, by women. He was pretty sure that made him some kind of feminist. Dean Winchester, the horniest feminist. He chuckled to himself. He could tell Cas all about his progress as a human when they met up Thursday forr … oh yeah. That blind date...


	9. A real film-kid reference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That one about date night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween!   
> And also, I'm participating in the nanowrimo.org novel writing challenge in November, so there won't be updates to this again until December. GASP I know. I was doing so well there for a hot second. Wish me luck!

Thursday arrived with an unexpected hemp protein delivery (thanks again, Charlie) and a light drizzle. Dean had hung a dark, fitted button-up shirt in the back of his baby just in case the day got away from him, and he ended up showering and shaving at the gym. Cas was just stepping out onto his porch when Dean arrived to pick him up. He had an air about him when he slid into the passenger seat that Dean couldn’t read, so he chalked it up to triumph that his stupid raincoat was actually weather appropriate. They traveled the first couple of blocks in silence, until Cas cleared his throat.

“Just so you know, I understand that accepting a ride to this event does not mean I will necessarily be receiving a return trip. I have cab fare.”

Dean glanced over at the older man, a bit thrown off. It wasn’t as if Cas didn’t begin conversations with the most awkward statements every other day. Why only last weekend he had asked Dean if he knew any children who would want to accompany him to the children’s museum to look at the indoor beehive.

“I’m not planning on trying to take this girl home, Cas. You don’t have to get a cab.”

Cas chewed on his lip and watched streetlights blink overhead.

“I mean, I guess if you wanted to get to know your date better it’d be a little weird if I drove you both home.”

Cas turned and hit Dean with a scandalized glare. Dean picked it up in one of his many side-eyes.

“Hey, you started this. I’m not saying it’d be weird if you hooked up with the guy.” Dean cringed at the ruining effect of context on a simple phrase. “Or not. I don’t know if it’s different with guys or what.”

Cas shrugged moodily and looked out the side window.

“Honestly, my knowledge of bisexual dating practices is much more theoretical than it is practical. And that’s not saying a lot, considering my track record with cultural norms in general.”

Dean interpreted this Cas-speak to mean that he hadn’t really dated a lot of guys. It was oddly reassuring news. There was a small (LARGE) piece of Dean that had been afraid that Cas-on-a-gay-date would be hip to some sort of secret gay dating code that would allow him to sail through the evening saying all the right things and pushing all the right buttons. But if real-life Cas was actually inexperienced in this area, then he would be awkward and blunt and completely honest about any opinion that could be solicited from him. Dean was relieved that it looked like he’d get to have real-life Cas with him for the duration.

“Well then it looks like Lisa’s friends probably aren’t getting lucky tonight, unless they’re as fluid as we are. Then they can just go home together.”

Dean pulled the Impala into The Roadhouse parking lot just as he finished speaking. He put her in park and turned off the ignition.

“Fluid as we are?” Cas spoke each word as if the hand of God had just etched them into the windshield. Dean pocketed the keys, and coughed, but he fought the urge to bail out of the vehicle. He was not, however, able to quell the angry voice of his inner monologue. _Damn that fan fiction porn. Damn those girls and their 300 words of gay panic followed by 2,000 words of smut. Damn their science fiction universes that had the same traffic patterns and pop stars and political leaders as the real world. It was fucking confusing. And fuck his big mouth for not waiting for the okay on outing himself as some flower-child who’ll apparently get off on anything -_

“Right. Well let’s not keep them waiting.” Cas’s tone was lighter, which in his case meant he sounded more like a public radio host leading into light jazz than a public radio host reporting on a suicide bombing. He exited, and took the smell of cologne and damp nylon with him.

Inside, after holding about three sets of doors for each other, Dean and Cas quickly located their party. Lisa had her crew crowded into a booth with a dragged-up table and chairs that extended it to accommodate all six of them. She was sitting on one booth bench next to her boyfriend, Victor. Victor was a detective by day, and a great lover of black leather by night. Actually, Dean was slightly perplexed at the amount of black leather around the whole table until he remembered that The Roadhouse was essentially a biker bar. Apparently the wrong weather for riding didn’t deter these folks from wearing their gear. A tan and tousled brunette sat on the other side of Lisa, sporting a tight tank top and a sleeveless leather vest. She jumped up and introduced herself as Pam, gripping Dean and Cas both in two quick hugs. In the corner of the booth, across from Lisa and Victor, sat Benny. He also stood and introduced himself with a firm handshake to Dean and Cas. Dean crowded Cas into the booth next to Benny, and sat at the added table across from Pam, which made Lisa smile happily.

“Perfect! I’m so excited we could all make it out tonight! Thank you guys!” She grinned like a Cheshire cat. The waitress approached. Everyone ordered drinks.

As they waited for their beverages and perused the menus, everyone shared similar tales of how it was an unusually busy or difficult day for them. Except for Cas, who had slept until noon, woken up to eat lunch, and then gone back to sleep until six. After a quick argument about check splitting and the ordering of dinner, they settled on sharing some pizzas and a couple pounds of wings.

Dean’s first impression of Pam was that she was hot, and she didn’t take shit from anyone. He was a little hesitant about her being older.  He was young, but he had help raised Sam, had seen some action overseas, technically died in a car wreck and now he owned his own business, so he wasn’t short on life experience. But Pam was the kind of woman who threw phrases like “well you’re just a kid” or “oh, to be young again,” into conversation without really caring about the implication. Hell, Cas was almost as old as she was, but she apparently vibrated with the wisdom of the ages as opposed to Cas's state of vexed curiosity.

Dean’s impression of Benny was “meh.” He was a six, maybe, on a scale of one to ten. It wasn’t like Dean was completely familiar with all the lingo, but he thinks Benny would be classified as some kind of “bear”, which didn’t really jive with Dean’s impression of what Cas was looking for. Luckily, Dean’s transformation into some psychoanalytical self-reflective sap was not fully complete, which left him able to drink his drink and enjoy the company and NOT remind himself that Cas was clearly looking for someone more like him.

Perhaps it was the fact that they had begun drinking before they managed to fill their stomachs, but the whole party became tipsy rather quickly. Even Cas, who Dean had seen take on heroic doses in the past. Dean bullshitted with Lisa and Pam, finding out how they met, encouraging Pam to tell stories about Lisa that made her blush. Victor would listen, amused, or talk Harleys with Benny. They seemed to be pretty good friends, which made Dean all warm and fuzzy. It was a big, burly straight guy and his burly gay friend, and even though it was 2014, Dean couldn’t help but assume there was some long backstory bonding the two men together. The whole vibe of the police department was not exactly open and accepting, and uniformed guys in groups always seemed to censor themselves for the benefit of the most easily-offended members. So even though the majority of them had no real problem with people being gay they weren’t gonna go out of their way to befriend a person who would just end up getting people talking, or worse, need to be defended. Big, fratty groups of guys never wanted to invite that kind of tension into their lives, especially when they’d just end up trading off a few uptight straight friends for one openly gay friend.

 _Damn that fucking fan fiction._ Dean didn’t have time to coo over Victor and Benny. Victor and Benny had probably been best friends forever, and Victor had probably known Benny was gay since he was 11 or something. Dean shook his head, and diverted his attention towards Cas, who he hadn’t actually thought about for a while, despite the fact that their arms would brush against each other every few minutes as they shifted in their seats.

Cas was drunk. He was slouched against the back of the booth, picking at the label of a beer bottle and flashing a “golly-gee” grin around when anything amused him. Benny seemed to be eyeing him a bit cooly, but Dean thought he could see glimpses of interest flashing through his eyes at random intervals. Or at least, they seemed random as far as Dean could tell. They weren’t triggered by Cas’s neck-exposing head tilts and they weren’t in response to his deadpan humor, and they never really coincided with any of his fits of hilarious cultural naivety. Dean squinted. Benny must have had some sort of weird fetish that Dean was having trouble picking up on. He watched Cas closely, checking Benny’s reactions to his different movements and trying to imagine what Benny could be seeing from his angle that only sparked his interest two or three seemingly unrelated times within 30 minutes. Finally, he gave up, barely resisting the urge to throw his hands in the air in confusion.

He turned to find Pamela’s all-seeing eyes boring through him, lustily, but with a knowing smirk on her face.

“You know how men think it’s so hot when two women make-out?”

“Yes I do.” chimed Dean.

“Not my cup a tea,” Benny drawled.

“Hells yeah,” Victor leaned forward, licking his lips and probably picturing Lisa and Pam embracing passionately.

“I find it disconcerting and unconvincing when they direct too much of their attention to their audience, or the camera.” Cas explained to no one specifically.

Lisa gave Cas a look of pity, and his statement did not earn him any overt interest from Benny.

“Well sometimes the feeling goes both ways. Right now I would pay good money to see you stick your tongue down his throat.” Pamela was leaning forward, her arms clasped just under her perky chest, addressing Dean and indicating that she wished for Cas’s to be the target throat.

Lisa laughed, shrilly, suddenly uncomfortable for the sake of Dean, who was blushing under Pam’s dark stare.

“That would be something, alright. Ah ha. You’ve got Dean blushing, Pam. He’s not used to being objectified by dirty old women.”

“Shaddup.” Pam nudged Lisa in the shoulder, playfully. “It’s my right as an oppressed female. I gotta make up for lost time.”

“Wait a minute. Wouldn’t that be like me trying to enslave some of you guys?”

Everyone chuckled.

“Can it, Vic!” She took the last gulp of her beer and plunked the bottle on the table, which was now littered with pizza trays, wing bones and empties.

“I knew you guys were bikers, but I didn’t think you’d go all Scorpio Rising on me.” Dean stared at the table as he delivered a reference so obscure it was sure to flop.

“Ooooohh!” Pam yelled, before launching into a rousing verse of “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

“The Angels,” Cas mused, quietly. Pam shimmied in her seat as she sang, stopping abruptly in the middle of a phrase.

“Christ, you don’t want to hear me sing. Let’s get out of here. Who wants to go to Peepers?”

There was a strange, positive groan at Pam’s prompt to go to one of the local strip clubs.

“C’mon guys! There’s something for everyone. And I wanna see what kind of person makes your motor run.” She growled the last sentence at Dean, putting on her best sexy detective face.

“Oh man,” Dean lamented, as he raised his open palm up to catch the onslaught of protest he was about to incur. “I promised Cas I’d get him home at a reasonable time. We both work tomorrow.”

“Well there. Now I know.” Pam’s voice oozed with victory.

“I actually have a lifetime ban from Peepers.” Cas piped up.”

Dean checked to see if Benny was intrigued, but the man seemed to be intently adjusting his black leather hat just-so atop his big fat head.

………………………………………

After shuffling around and using the restroom and paying the tab, Dean and Cas ended up standing next to the Impala a few minutes after the rest of their party had hit the road. Dean stared at the driver-side door.

“You’re not driving us.”

“I know. Okay. Let’s go find a cab.”

Just then the bartender pushed open the outermost door and shouted into the parking lot.

“Don’t even think about driving away, you two. Your cab’s out front.”

Dean jumped away from his car like it was going to bite him. Cas raised his hands in innocence, which he then turned into a friendly wave to indicate he would be following the bartender’s advice. She gave him a nod and went back inside.

They piled into their cab, but Cas rattled off his address before Dean could speak up. It was just as well, as Cas’s house was closer. They rode in a content and buzzing silence.

The pair stumbled into Cas’s house considerably less inebriated than the first time. The light switches were all located fairly quickly, which had Dean complaining about the glare.

“Jesus fuck it’s bright in here. Why did we come here? I could be at a strip club right now.”

“Because you were apparently uncomfortable going to a strip-club with a very forward cougar. And I’ve been banned for life.”

Dean plunked himself back-first onto Cas’s couch and spread out to take up every cushion.

“Oh yeah. How’d you manage that?”

Cas harumphed and took off his raincoat, hanging it up on an iron coat stand. He proceeded to roll up his shirtsleeves.

“I mistook one of the dancer’s offer for sex as a cry for help, and explained to her that her self esteem issues were most likely stemming from a strained relationship with her father.”

“And they kicked you out?” Dean shielded his eyes to look up at Cas.

“Well she screamed first. But yes. After that.”

Cas stood for a moment, lost in the memory. Then he paced deliberately over to the easy chair that faced the couch, and sat himself down. Dean’s giggles served as the soundtrack.

“Dude. Only you, Cas. That’s classic.” Dean smiled to himself. “So, hey, man. Whadya think of Benny?”

Cas scoffed, politely.

“I think it was obvious that we didn’t have a connection.” He paused, contemplating. “I was, however, surprised you didn’t take Pam up on her suggestion that we make out, seeing as you and I are both so fluid now”

Dean cringed. They officially had just the wrong amount of alcohol in their systems. There was no brushing of hands or spinning of walls or stumbling together up dark staircases. There was just the slightest deterioration of their usual verbal filters, and the buzzing adrenaline hangover from meeting new people.

“I knew I shouldn’t have said that. Look. I misspoke. I’m not actually...fluid.”

“Alright, Dean.”

Dean couldn’t tell if he sounded disappointed or snarky or frustrated. It came out in Cas’s robot voice and Dean didn’t feel like looking over to locate context in his expression.

“I may have read some porn that included all kinds of gay sex. And it was all hot. But it’s not like I go out and pick-up guys now. I’m just admitting that in some fantasy scenarios, it’s hot.” Dean was still laying on his back, and he had begun gesturing at the ceiling. “Just like Pam said. Beautiful people, touching each other. It’s sexy. That’s all. I’ll admit it and I’m cool with that, but it’s not- There’s like a million beautiful women in the world and the point is to eventually end up with one, so it’s not like - why would I- I’m not gonna - “ Dean waved his hand in lazy circles, searching for the words.

“You do not want to deter any potential female interest by publicly admitting any physical attraction to a man.”

“Exactly!” Dean waved a conciliatory hand towards Cas’s chair, still not turning his head to make eye contact.

“So if I understand you correctly, the beautiful woman you will eventually end up with would overlook your promiscuous past as long as your dalliances were only with women, but would take issue if there were men interspersed in your past?”

Dean sighed, and rested the back of his hand on his forehead, lazily.

“I dunno, Cas, probably. Women get jealous, man. Half the time they’re jealous of your guy friends anyway, right? Fuck. I haven’t dated since Cassie, but she was always on my case.”

Cas sat quietly in his deep, leather easy chair, looking at his lap and tapping a rhythm out on the right arm. After a while he breathed in and readied himself to stand.

“Goodnight, Dean.”

He reached out and petted Dean’s head, or maybe just ran his fingers through the soft, short hair. Dean still had his hand over his eyes, and he didn’t move more than a quick spasm of the neck. Cas let his fingers trail over the back of the couch as he retreated upstairs to his bedroom.

Dean kicked off his shoes and curled up towards the back of the couch, pouting at the realization that no woman since his mother had ever offered him such an endearing affection while expecting nothing in return.  
………………………………………..

Lisa came to work on Saturday, refreshed and hydrated after a long day of pampering and recovery. Sam was at the counter, and he politely asked if she had weekend plans, which somehow led her into describing her previous Thursday night to him. Sam found a few things odd about her story. Firstly, this Pam lady was apparently all over Dean, and he did NOT take her home. Secondly, when invited to a strip club, he declined. There was a mystery afoot, and Sam Winchester was on the case.

That afternoon, he casually questioned Dean about their outing. According to Dean, it was fun but he didn’t want to sort of mix work and pleasure by hooking up with Pam, and Cas had to be up early so they couldn’t go out to the strip club with the others. These explanations made sense, and weren’t too perfect or overly detailed as to seem unbelievable. Super sleuth Sam was stumped.

Sam thought about filling Jess in and asking her what she thought, but what would he say? “My older brother is acting weird because he passed on seeing strippers and banging a near-stranger”? These were the traits of Dean’s he most wanted to conceal, not reveal.

He pondered it all of Sunday, until it was pushed out of the forefront of his thought.

On Monday, it came rushing back, when Cas, before exiting the gym, reached nonchalantly over the counter and ruffled Dean’s hair. Cas’s back was to Sam, so all he could see was the privately amused look on Dean’s face. On it’s own, it was nothing, but Sam was keeping a “tally of weird”.

On Tuesday, Sam came to work to find Dean, Charlie and Cas rubbing virgin coconut oil vigorously into their faces, under Cas’s direction. Sam opted out of the experiment when he was told his face could go through a “cleansing period” as the toxins left his skin in the form of a breakout. No thank you.

On Wednesday, Cas showed up looking hard and broken and announced that a kindly old diabetic woman had died in his ambulance. Without hesitation, Dean walked around the counter and gave him a hug. Sam reached across and patted an open piece of Cas’s shoulder, trying to endure a moment of cognitive silence before debating with himself over whether Dean’s sudden outpouring of sensitivity should make the “tally of weird.”

On Thursday, at the end of movie night (Mrs. Doubtfire - because yeah, Sam didn’t remember it and Cas had NEVER SEEN IT) Cas stood up, donned his coat, then ran his hand over Dean’s head as he made his way out to the door. And Dean just reached for the remote, and switched over to live TV as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Sam could barely contain himself until the door clicked shut behind Cas.

“Dean, seriously, what’s up with you and Cas?”

“What do you mean?” Dean stared a pressure cooker info-mercial.

“What’s with the touching. All the… hair touching?” Sam furrowed his brow at the sound of the question, out loud.

“I dunno. Nothing, I guess. Cas is just a touchy guy.

“Since when? Not to me.” Sam answered, quickly.

“He couldn’t reach that rat’s nest if he wanted to.” Dean couldn’t resist a chance to jest. “I dunno. I guess we have some kind of understanding.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“Eh, c’mon, Sammy.” Dean exhaled a dissatisfied grunt. “He knows that we’re strictly platonic so he feels more comfortable with his platonic affection, or something like that. We’re on the same page.”

“Wait, how did you get on different pages?

Dean rubbed at an itch in his eye, tenderly for a moment.

“I may have confused him at one point.” Dean’s voice was small.

Sam gave his “tally of weird” a straight block of five as alarm bells went off in his head. Dean was still rubbing away at his eye, and he eventually was rubbing the side of his face with his palm.

“Ah. Don’t you have class tomorrow? Go on, get out of here, ya moose.”


	10. A Healthy Dose of Curiosity

Sam did have class the next day, with Becky Rosen, PhD. After a rousing group discussion of what traits commonly denoted femininity, Sam decided to wait around for a minute to pick the professor's brain.

"You gonna ask Dr. Rosen something?" Jess was slouching in a chair by the exit. Sam jumped, wondering when she had snuck over.

"Yeah I've got a couple of questions. You going to the coffee shop? I'll meet you there, if you want to wait a minute."

"Alright." She sat for a moment, still slumped, then powered up out of the chair with a growl. "Ugh. Manly groan. I killed my back doing paintball last weekend."

"Oh, man. That sucks. You need heat on it." Sam was excellent at sympathy.

"OK. I accept. You can rub my shoulders at the coffee shop. I'll see you there." She turned towards the doorway, then paused, a peculiar look in her eyes. "Don't go all Brokeback on me, alright?" With that she flounced out of the room.

Sam was flummoxed. Dr. Rosen pulled him out of his reverie.

"She means she doesn't want me educating you on the joys of gay sex because you're needed in the heterosexual dating pool." Sam whipped his head around to see his professor eyeing him, sharply. "Did you need something, Sam?"

Sam inhaled. The morning couldn't get much weirder, and he had a lonely shift at the gym later today when he'd be able to ponder out what these women were trying to tell him.

"Dr. Rosen, I wanted to ask you if you've ever based any of your fan fiction on your real-life research?"

"That depends. Do you think you've found my online alias?"

"No." Sam did not hide his horror at the suggestion.

"Excellent. Then I'll say yes, both my personal and professional research often ends up within the content of my fics."

"So do you personally know anyone who's gone from straight to bisexual? Or come to terms with the fact that they've always been bisexual? I'm having trouble figuring out whether it's being accurately described."

"Oh wow. I thought you were going to question my encyclopedic knowledge of gay sex."

"Uh. No. Well, maybe. I mean, I think my brother might be in love with his friend and not realize it."

"Your brother Dean?" Her eyes shone like diamonds.

"Yeah."

"And his friend - the dark-haired scruffy guy?" Her eyes glinted as if hit with an errant sunbeam.

"Uh, yeah. Castiel."

At this point Dr. Rosen swayed a little, eyes glazed over. She had to reach out and steady herself on a desk before she continued.

“Oh, Sam. I love you, in a totally platonic, professorly way, but also as someone who ardently wishes I could live my life over and over again, in a thousand different timelines. And in at least five of them we would inevitably be together.” Professor Rosen reached waaay up and placed her girlish hand on Sam's mound of shoulder, and squeezed, gingerly.

Sam blinked and swallowed as they had a moment.

“I know you’re earnestly trying to help your brother, but you’re taking these stories of sexual rediscovery at face-value and neglecting to explore the hidden or subconscious themes. 

“Which are…?”

“Well they’re waiting to be discovered. And they’re open to interpretation.”

“Can you give me an example?”

"Uh, ok. Here. Many fanfiction writers like to focus on couples who are in very close, arguably platonic relationships in canon. But the characters in TV shows don’t live healthy lives. They live in bubbles of drama with a limited cast of characters." She drew a tight little bubble in the air around Sam's face. 

"The relationships being depicted on screen are forged and bonded with the kind of emotional trauma that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. So the depth of those characters’ connection seems unacheivable in our normal, ho-hum, everyday life. I mean, statistically, after college we only get a chance to make a couple of new friends a year. We’re certainly not sacrificing our souls or saving everyone from armageddon with them, or anything." Dr. Rosen looked glum for a second.

"Next, consider the fact that most of the fanfiction writers are women. They're suffering from an added level of despair because the question of whether they can achieve the depicted level of connection is moot because it’s very seldom written and acted out between a man and a woman. While we have no shortage of strong female characters to look up to, the strongest friendships or partnerships are achieved by big manly men who are happily co-dependent, turning only to the company of women when those women are useful, whether it be to their quest or to fulfil their sexual desires."

“Well, no offense Dr. Rosen, but that's a lot of generalizations that I can think of arguments for.”

“Not now! Bear with me, Sam. Think about Mpreg. Or the Omega!verse. No! Don't even get me started on the Omega!verse. In the Mpreg stories I've assigned, do you believe you were reading works by writers who simply have a kinky desire to see men pregnant, or did you get the feeling the writers were assigning exclusively female issues to fictional characters because their true feelings about modern domesticity sound better coming out of the mouths of their favorite on-screen personas - men who they identify with more strongly than women?"

"Uh. Honestly, both?"

"Exactly. The male pregnancy kink is an exciting form of sexual creativity and it drives the plot, but the dilemmas of choosing children over a career, or career over children, day care or staying at home - they're old and familiar. And female." She wrinkled her nose as if she suddenly smelled old diapers before she continued.

"So the discovery of fluid sexuality that you've been researching is in the foreground. It's the story and the plot. The will-they won't-they. The you're-your-own-worst-enemy. It's a trope."

"Oh. So I should be looking for the deeper meaning because the sex and sexuality of the characters is really nothing more than stumbling blocks for the plot. But the details of the relationship between the two men reveals the kind of relationship that the writer herself is fantasizing about - but she's exploring the differences in having a male character act it out for her?"

Dr. Rosen squeeed and clapped her hands. Sam breathed a bit more freely once his shoulder was free of her dainty grip.

"Sam you are the biggest genius! Seriously! It took Chuck FOREVER to figure out what I was talking about." Her eyes got distant and her mouth turned down. "Well, he wasn't trying that hard because he doesn't really care about this stuff. Still, there is no way you are not going to pass my class with, like an A plus plus plus!"

Sam smiled automatically, always grateful for a compliment and the promise of a higher marks. But not even an A plus plus plus could deter him from kissing his professor's butt with even more sensitive questions.

"So is this a good thing, for women?"

Dr. Rosen's jaw snapped close with a click as her thought process manifested itself in bird-like movements of her head and her squinching beak.

"My first instinct is to scream "YES", but I really don't know, Sam. It's a pretty powerful form of self-expression and exploration, not to mention communication. But sometimes I do wonder if women were treated differently in the media if I'd be able to find as many repeating themes within the texts. Then again, many have argued that no matter what, shippers gonna ship." She ended gravely. Sam contemplated, but pressed on, letting his future lawyer out to practice its tenacity.

"So wait, do you think these male characters that aren’t at all gay in canon mostly get shipped together because of jealousy?"

"Jealousy is powerful. What kind of jealousy are you talking about?"

"Like, the viewers don't want a romantic or sexual relationship to subtract from the bond between their two favorite characters, so they pair them up romantically to prevent anyone from ever coming between them?"

"Oh, yes! That was basically my masters thesis. God love you, Sam."

Sam let out a nervous laugh before plunging ahead.

"But if two guys really are that close, wouldn't they be doing everyone a disservice if they did just go out and get sex from women, but got everything else from each other?"

"Well, yeah. It'd be especially cruel to the women, if they were ever seeking to have a meaningful relationship with the guy or, I don't know, be considered a whole person. But these crazy character bonds- they're fiction. They're the ultimate." She mimed choking the air while grimacing as if she were being choked herself. “I mean, a fair portion of them are incestuous.”

"Well I know a lot of people who have had a lot of shi- uh, really terrible things happen to them. TV drama doesn't sound that much crazier than real life, sometimes."

"You're thinking of your brother again?"

Sam looked down at the floor and blushed.

"Look. I can only comment on Dean and Castiel as far as to say they are both super hot. Like, incredibly and infuriatingly good looking. It's to the point where I am annoyed that I met them in person, because people that good looking are just supposed to stay in Hollywood and leave regular folks alone."

Sam's jaw flexed, and Dr. Rosen paused to breathe in the scent of young, feminist moose.

"Why don't you ask your friend Jessica what she thinks of Dean and Castiel? That way you can have your real life drama cake of sexual rediscovery AND eat Jessica too. I mean befriend. Befriend Jessica. You can begin forming a strong bond of friendship. With Jessica. I ship it."

"Uh, okay. Thanks. I'll do that." Sam turned to leave, thoroughly wigged-out by the end of their talk. He paused and half-turned back. "Dr. Rosen? Please don't write about this."

Dr. Rosen was already typing away. She stopped, her fingers poised above the keys.

"About Dean and Castiel or you and Jess?"

"Oh you can go to town with Dean and Cas. That might actually help me. I was talking about me and Jess."

Dr. Rosen sniffed condescendingly and resumed typing away at the pace of a sudden downpour. She didn't even need to pause to call after him.

"Ha. Can't think of any good hetero ship to apply to you two anyway. Case in point! Bye bye, Sammy!"

...............

Later that evening Sam considered the day's events, marveling at the subtle shift in his and Jess's relationship. All she had done was make one cryptic, teasing remark, and demanded a back rub, but it was everything. Sam could breathe again, yet he was buzzing with anticipation at the same time. He was flirting with his best friend and it made him so happy it felt dangerous.

Dean came in at 10 to close up, startling Sam out of some very PG daydreams. 

"What's up little brother?" 

"I. Am. Awesome." Sam grinned at nothing then hit Dean with a sheepish look of triumph.

Dean beamed, and pulled blue a scarf from around his neck. 

"That's what I like to hear." He clapped his brother on the back, appreciatively.

"Where'd you get the scarf?" Sam eyed the well worn but expensive looking accessory as it laid draped over the back of the front desk chair.

"Cas lent it to me when it got cold as shit out of nowhere." Dean fiddled around the office, checking for messages.

Sam continued to look at the scarf. It meant something. Or it didn't. But it could. Sam was gonna make it mean something because Sam was on his way to getting laid by his favorite person and Dean should be able to have that too. 

"Does it smell like him?" Sam asked, simply.

Smell. What was it about smell? That mysterious relationship between scent and romance. It was not exactly one of those locker room topics that men threw out when the wanted to impress each other. Tits this and ass for days, sure. But no one ever mentioned the warm apple pie or musky vanilla out loud. That doesn't mean they weren't cataloging it all, deep inside themselves. Thanks to a class about fan fiction, Sam knew this to be true. Thanks to his new fan fiction obsession, Dean had figured it out as well. He stood still in the doorway of the office, furrowing his brow and shaking one hand as if he were trying to dry it off.

"Yeah, I guess." Dean narrowed his eyes at Sam for a moment. Sam just nodded, his expression pointedly pleasant. His brother turned away and sat himself down in the office, out of direct eye contact range.

"Cas smells like maple syrup." Dean blurted. Sam made 'oh? eyebrows that Dean couldn’t see. "He eats these fenugreek sprouts and they make your sweat smell like maple syrup. After he works out he smells like the busboy at a pancake house. It's so weird."

"Whoa." Sam intoned back, loudly. He eyed the scarf with renewed interest. "How strong is it really? Have you told Charlie yet?"

Sam stepped forward and gingerly sniffed the loose end of the scarf. All he got was a faint mingling of the two men's cologne. Dean swatted him away.

"It's his sweat, dude. He doesn't mop it up with a scarf."

"His neck could release the syrup smell. I was just curious."

Dean pulled the scarf back, possessively, and tossed it onto the cluttered office desk.

"Jesus. What with his Omega scent glands? You gotta stop reading that fan fiction crap. It's messing with your sense of reality. And please don't tell Charlie about Fenugreek. I don't have the room or permitting for a commercial sprouting operation."

"I won't. You're right. Charlie doesn't do anything small."

…………….

Dean sat at home, bored and alone. It was Wednesday, and no one was around.

Previously, he would have showered and pampered and skipped out to a bar to see whom he could find. He would have bought her some drinks and talked about the gym, as humbly as possible, then asked if she wanted to get out of there. She would have wanted to get out of there. They’d go back to his place and whether they each played it cool for a couple of minutes, or one of them pressed the other up against the door as it clicked shut, they’d be making out on his couch ten minutes later, his hand skimming up the inside of her blouse. His hand twitched for a moment as he envisioned the perfect fantasy version of his usually Wednesday. She’d be lithe and soft and she’d smell like fruit and flowers. They wouldn’t speak, because their mouths would be too busy tasting each other. 

But who was he kidding? They wouldn’t speak because they would have nothing to say to one another. That’s why he got so many cloyingly minty kisses in the morning. He didn’t lie to them. He didn’t offer them insincere platitudes about how he usually doesn’t do this kind of thing, or about how it was something magnetic that drew them together. He never even asked for their phone numbers. It was what it was. He read the girl and the clothes and the situation and then tried to tailor the sex to whatever sort of fantasy he guessed she was interested in having. It was actually a lot of work on Dean’s part, and he was pretty sure that, while his stats were probably amazing compared to a normal player-type, there was still a double digit percentage of women he had slept with who had faked their climaxes. He could usually see it coming (no pun intended). In the space of one shaky exhale they’d go from oddly sighing, squinty-eyed cowgirl to moaning porn goddess for no noticeable reason. At that moment Dean would have to decide whether to slow them down and accept the challenge of the finish that they had just given up chasing, or to lie back and let them live out their porn star fantasy. They felt beautiful and desired, so it wasn’t a total loss, right?

In review, going to bars to pick up chicks just so that they could both feel mutually attractive and at least one of them could get off was slowly becoming a more tedious pastime. Dean was already at home, comfortable, and a little turned on. He had the internet and he had a lot of lube. He also had some curiosity. Nothing crazy. A healthy dose. And it wasn’t as if he could experiment with his one night stands. The whole point was to make the girl feel irresistible, not give her the impression that he couldn’t get off without her sticking a finger in his butt. 

A healthy dose of curiosity and a lot of time alone.

.............

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you a lot, you readers, you.  
> The best (for me) is yet to come.


	11. Jessica Moore is soft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, welcome to over 2,000 words of heterosexual porn!  
> There is your warning!  
> Sam n Jess weren't my initial intention with this - but you have to have someone screwing around during these slow-burn ordeals. Am I right?  
> So there. I apologize.

"I just don't get it.  I can hack a bank across state lines. I can slay dragons-"

Dean gave Charlie his c'mon now face.

"But its just- how does Cas know everything cool about life? Maple syrup, Dean! He can hack his basic biology using ingredients found at Whole Foods!"

"He's into health stuff. He works in medicine."

"He's a mystical being!  We all need to hang out."

Dean felt a twinge of protest that wanted him to point out their ever conflicting schedules because he hardly got to hang out with Cas enough as it was.  Charlie was staring at her smartphone, which probably meant she would be picking some date so far in advance that he couldn't feasibly refuse.

"Dean. Dean. Uh. Be the sister I never had for a minute and get this." Dean wrinkled his nose, not excited about the implications.  He braced his hands on the counter and directed his gaze downward, in trepidation.  

"Myrrh - that’s an essential oil - will reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, cause elation, and also stimulate the shedding of uterine lining. I can literally hack my period!"

There it was. Dean cringed and licked his teeth.  Luckily the rest of the gym was deserted.  

"So how about we all get froyo on December 20th, around 1?"

"Yes, Charlie, fine. Just- go... shower already. Be clean."

Charlie looked up at Dean with a more serious, appraising stare, apparently trying to decide if she should find his reluctance to discuss her uterus offensive. She sniffed.  He wasn't doubled over gagging or flailing at her, wildly.  He was calm.  She excused his reticence.

"I'm gonna go be clean. FroYo on the 20th!"

"You got it, sister."

Charlie's laughter echoed through the tile locker room as the door swung shut behind her.

............................

Sam and Jess were kissing. It was marvelous. She was soft and her lips were plush and marshmallowy and her hair was silky and honestly, Sam was having difficulties coming up with more synonyms for soft because that's what he was enjoying most about touching her. They were in her dorm room, but her roommate had already left for break, like most of the other students, so there were no distractions and almost zero chance of interruption.

It had sort of just happened.  Sam had been admittedly too preoccupied with the "right" time for their first kiss, so he was a little blindsided when Jess leaned off of the top bunk (she had been studying there when he entered) and licked his top lip, playfully. He had chased her face as it retreated, and they had enjoyed a chaste exploration of each others lips for a few moments before he pulled back and just stared at her in grateful wonder.  She blushed.  She slid herself off the bed, which was partly silly but also strangely seductive. When her feet hit the ground she fisted Sams shirt and pushed him gently into her desk chair, where she proceeded to straddle him.

She took a deep breath and leaned in towards his mouth, stopping  right before they connected again.  He watched her lashes twitch as she teased him, smiling slightly and waiting a beat before letting her tongue dart out to run along the seam of his lips. He felt one of her hands tickling the back of his neck while the other slid up, languidly to rest over his heart.  He responded by gently running his hands along her waist, but their shared breath and tenderly brushing noses remained the focus of the moment.  Sam took some initiative, and kissed Jess’s bottom lip, letting his eyes fall closed so that he could concentrate on teasing her mouth open into another grin.  She responded in kind and suddenly they were tentatively licking and sucking each other, gently nudging each others noses or foreheads which would break them apart just long enough to lightly pant into one anothers mouths.  It was the sexiest kiss Sam had ever shared, and he was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be able to walk away from this make-out session without first dousing his erection with ice water.

Jess eased his worry about the need to walk away when she shifted her groin into his erection, and moaned in his ear, letting her eyes roll back for a moment before she bit her bottom lip and ground into him once more, with intent.

“Oh my God, Sam.” She whispered into his ear, fisting at the fabric of his open flannel, “don’t let me rush this.”  She found his mouth again and let them stay connected for longer, but Sam could feel her whole body begin to slither within his grip, like a live wire dancing with sexual electricity.  During a fleeting moment of consciousness, Sam marveled at the fact that they were still clothed, and had been kissing for longer than it had taken him and Ruby to strip, come and clean-up.

Speaking of stripping, Jess was beginning to let her hands explore beneath the hem of his tee shirt, which was technically under his flannel, which made him grossly overdressed for the amount of heat that had suddenly filled the room.  He leaned forward and stripped both garments off in one swoop,  closing the distance he had created as quickly as possible by leaning in to kiss under Jess’s jaw.  She sighed happily, then pushed him back so that she could look at him.  It was odd.  He didn’t have boobs, but he was undeniably being ogled.  Jess ran her hands up his torso, chuckling to herself as she grazed over washboard abs and the gentle planes of his pectorals.

“Are you a nipple guy?” She asked, running her thumbs over his areolas with a questioning glance.  “Not a nipple guy?”

Sam wrinkled his brow.  It really hadn’t come up in the past.

“Uh, I don’t know.  Yours, definitely.”  He gave her a sheepish grin that belied the squirminess he was feeling under her lusty gaze.  She let out a laugh, and then slid off of his lap, straightening up in front of him and leaving him desperate and confused once more.

“Ok then.  I’m personally a big fan.  Just so you know.”  She pulled her sweater up over her head to reveal one of those sheer black, impractical bras that was somehow ten times more alluring than any set of naked breasts ever could be.  Sam sucked in a breath, wondering if she would return to his lap, or…

She unbuttoned her jeans and slid them to the floor, revealing the matching sheer panty.  Beautiful, sweet, funny, charismatic Jess was not shy.  She backed up until she reached her bed, but did not fall back onto it.  Rather she stood up on her knees and slid to the center.

“C’mere.”  She beckoned for him.  He stood.  His jeans pulled at his arousal almost painfully. “Take ‘em off.”  She suggested, before meeting his gaze and seeing the uncertainty in his eyes.

“Oh my god,” she stuttered.  “Is this alright?  Is it too much?”

“No!”  It was all he could do not to yell.  “No this is… this is… Like you said.  I want it to last.”  He  pulled off his pants without ceremony, swiftly ditching his socks and shoes as well.  He eased onto the bed and met Jess in the middle, sitting on his heels to match her height as she remained raised upright on her knees.  

After a short attempt at making out in the middle of the bed, Sam gently urged Jess backwards towards the headboard, propping one of her pillows up behind her, encouraging her to lean back.  He then paused, hand in the air in front of her stomach, and pulled back to look at her.

“Can I -?”  He let his fingers finish the question, swirling slowly below her navel towards the thin trail of hair he could see through the fabric.

Instead of answering she simply took control of his hand, guiding it down to dip into her panty. He breathed deeply and leaned forward to kiss her neck to distract her from the sudden proximity of his twitching fingers.

He grazed the thin line of her pubic hair lightly, twirling and skimming in a tempo that he hoped was enticing.  She gently rocked her hips forward to meet his digits with a moment of firmness before backing off again and letting his touch become no stronger than a tickle.  She repeated the pelvic lean a few more times, and Sam tuned in to the rhythm she seemed to prefer. Her little huffs of breath were enough to keep him hard as he ran his free hand up the back of her thigh and his mouth down her collarbone.  

Craning a little, he caught sight of a perfect nipple, centered and straining against the sheer triangle of her bra.  He licked it through the fabric, which elicited a sudden symphony of results.  

"Fuck yes." Jess breathed, closing her eyes in bliss, arching her back so that her tit chased forward towards Sam's mouth, and wrapping her arms loosely around his shoulders as she shivered with glee. "More of that. Please." She moaned with her eyes still squeezed closed. Sam happily complied, nearly missing the wetness her shuddering had smeared along his fingers. He then put his giant brain to work, teasing her nipple with gentle grazes of teeth and tongue while he began venturing fingers into her warm pussy.  He was welcomed in both endeavors with gasps of pleasure and grinding hips that seemed to now be suggesting the more the merrier.  He allowed another finger to disappear inside her, then one more when he pulled off her left nipple with a pop and moved his attention to the right.  She began to fuck herself on his hand in earnest, which rendered the hand still wrapped around her thigh superfluous.  He quickly reached it up to tease the nipple not currently being suckled.  If there was such thing as a Jessica moore cheat code, this was apparently it.

"Sam. Oh my god, Sam. I wanted to-" She panted and twitched, pushing onto his fingers more erratically.  He looked up at her through his lashes and nipped down on her tit with a grin.  She let out a breathy shout of surprise, then was suddenly coming.  He blinked up at her with a look of triumphant surprise as he felt her interior flutter happily around his fingers.  She let her forehead fall onto his shoulder as she tried to catch her breath.

"I had wanted- to come - on your cock." She mumbled into Sam's shoulder.  

"Holy shit." Sam had left the house prepared for a number of scenarios, but effective post orgasm dirty talk was not on the table as long as his erection still strained mightily against his boxer briefs.

"Well hey, nothing is impossible, but I make no promises." With that she pushed Sam back so that he was prone, backwards on her bed. She stripped him of his briefs and licked a stripe up his cock without preamble. He coughed a groan of surprise, looking up to catch her eye and tell her that this really wasn't necessary if she was tired.  There was no eye contact to be made, because as it turns out, she seemed to keep her eyes closed as she wrapped her mouth around his head and sucked.   Sam's head fell back as the energy to protest was diverted elsewhere.

Jess's oral affections were simple and firm, mostly confident, but with hints of whimsy whenever she popped off of the tip with relish. When she was sure Sam couldn't think straight anymore she leaned back and retrieved a condom from her bedside drawer, as well as a bottle of lube.  He took the condom from her with a questioning look that Jess scoffed at.

"Sam, I'm already horny again and I'm super wet." She emphasized her enthusiasm by chasing his own hand as it rolled on the profilactic, with a fistfull of lube. She hopped off the bed for a moment to divest herself of her ruined panties and her bra.  Sam took a deep breath, trying to rationalize the personal belief that the sex that was about to occur between them in this state of complete undress was somehow so much more intimate than the foreplay, no matter how invasive and revealing the foreplay was.

She indicated with a swirl of her finger that he should turn himself around, and he complied, backing himself up against the headboard.  Jess climbed over him like a happy cat, and leaned in to give him a chaste kiss as she angled his cock and settled slowly down onto his impressive length.  They continued to kiss as he felt her ease and settle around him. Sam tried to focus through the haze of euphoria, enough to communicate some of his more sappy feelings through the compassion of his embrace. Jess responded by grinding onto him, immediately sighing the positive effects into his mouth.  Sam surged his hips upwards in response, no longer able to keep his needs completely at bay. Jess let herself ride his thrusts bonelessly, rolling her hips and her shoulders, and occasionally letting her head lol back in bliss.  Sam was riding the edge of his finish like a skater grinding the edge of an empty pool. Jess had already come and she had made it clear she wasn't one of those girls who could pull multiple orgasms out of the air.  He considered that he should just let go, but as he watched he could see her furrow her brow in concentration. After that there was no doubt Sam was going to try to get her there a second time.

He cradled her waist as he rolled his hips into her, harder and harder as she urged him forward with little yes's that were speeding up and changing pitch. Suddenly, when he felt like he couldn't last another second, he felt short nails digging into his bicep as  Jess clamped down on him in concentrated  ecstasy.  He couldn't tell you what he saw when he came, be it stars or white or the back of his eyelids.  It was a total release of his mind. Of tension and anxiety about getting physical with Jess and being gentle and smelling good and being a gentleman and being an amazing lay.

All that was left to think about before exhaustion overtook him, was the distinct possibility that this could happen again. And again and again and again.

.....................

Dean paced his living room as he waited for Cas to come back from the bathroom. They had shared a Sam-free Tuesday movie night and watched some cartoon about bizarre old French women.  Most of the evening had been couched in agreeable silence, but Dean had gotten inexplicably nervous when it came time to invite Cas along on his next trip.

"You're pacing." Cas noted, blandly, having returned to the room as if by silent apparition.

"Hey so Jo's fighting in Vegas on New Year's eve. I'm gonna be in her corner. Bobby will be there. Jo's mom Ellen and Charlie and probably Sam.  Did you want to come?" There was no reason for him to be so tense. He wasn't inviting Cas to share the honeymoon suite with him. He was just letting his buddy know about a fun trip that everyone was taking together.  

"Are you uptight because anytime we socialize outside of a set schedule we end up toeing the line of appropriate behavior between friends?"  Cas let his eyes bore holes into his friend.

And that may have just been it in a nutshell, but Cas's knack for spilling succinct truths was one of the qualities that nudged Dean towards that very line, and that truth needed to be quickly buried and glossed over.

"I'm uptight because I haven't got laid in a while." Dean mentally smacked himself in the forehead. "... By a person." Oh much better. You fixed everything.

"I'm sorry, does that mean you have recently been laid by a place or thing?" Cas's eyes glistened with humor as he ratcheted up the tension by continuing to stand perfectly still.  Far be it from him to offer Dean a hopeful glimpse of the end of this conversation.

Dean's eyes slid to the bathroom door guiltily before snapping back to Cas.  So he may have ventured deeper into self exploration than he initially intended, but it was too easy after he realized his experiments could simply be delivered to his house in a smiling Amazon box that belied nothing of it's salacious contents.

"Yes, Cas. I've recently slept with the City of Cincinnati.  And also Prague. Vegas is next. I know you work on most of the holidays but I didn't want to leave you behind." He ended with his eyes on the floor.  

"Thank you, Dean. I'll let my superiors know I am available for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but will be out of town for the new year."

"Sweet. Welcoming in the New Year in Sin City. This will be awesome."

Cas smiled fondly as he donned his coat, and nodded his agreement before exiting.

............................

“Dija hear Dean is bringing Cas to Las Vegas?” Jo asked through chattering teeth as she tried to distract herself from the bath of ice that it was supposedly so important that she be immersed in.

“Is that so? So things didn’t pan out with that Pam?”

“Nope.  And I guess he didn’t even take her home.  He said Cas had to work early or something.”

She waggled her eyebrows at her trainer.  Bobby harumphed.

“Now listen here, missy.  Dean hasn’t had too many dear friends over the years.  Why do you have to make a big thing out of the one normal relationship he manages to maintain?”

“Oh no!” She winced, after her vehemence made the water slosh. “Don’t you blame this on me.  This isn’t a friendship.  This is a courting ritual.  And Cas isn’t just some guy - he’s this weird, all-knowing older guy who zapped Dean back to life and then sent him to college without asking for anything in return.  I just call it like I see it.”

“Yeah, well.  You focus on you and the fight.  Whatever he’s doing, let him muddle through it without a damn audience.”

“Whatever.  It’s retaliation for that fan fiction Sam wrote about you.”

“Now you’re not even making sense.  Get out of there.”  

Jo eased herself up out of the bath, shivering, and gratefully wrapped herself in the towel Bobby handed her.

 

 


	12. Lollipop, Lollipop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean messes with Cas and then submits to psychological torture, willingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting.  
> You're all great.  
> Comments are nice.  
> Sorry if there are errors. I will proofread later, as it is very late.

Thanksgiving passed with Bobby visiting distant relatives, Sam braving Jess's parent's house (just for dessert and coffee), Cas resuscitating those people statistically more likely to die after a large meal or prolonged in-law exposure, and Dean guiltily eating half a pan of apple sausage stuffing while resolutely refusing to think about Jo and her god awful weight cut.  At this rate the kid wasn't gonna get to really eat again until next year. Well, better her than Dean.

With turkey day behind them, Sam and Jess began prepping for finals, while Dean and Cas watched movies, and Dean tried to prep Cas for an ice cream date with Charlie.  They were sitting through the credits of Role Models when Dean began listing Charlie's likes, dislikes and general expectations aloud.  Cas sighed with the twitch of a nostril, which was for him the equivalent of clearing his throat.

"I will make every effort not to embarrass you, Dean."

"I don't think you're going to embarrass me." Dean came off a bit defensive.

"Well then I cannot determine the source of your nerves.  By now I would have assumed that you were setting me up with her, but Sam informed me that she is gay."

"As gay as the day is long." Dean's eyes glazed over as he remembered walking in on Charlie and a leggy brunette at the last Christmas party.  Cas squirmed in his seat, which brought Dean back to reality, and prompted his mouth to start moving without his full conscious control.

"She's just- she's gonna like you and she's gonna expect you to like her, which you will, so then she's gonna want it to be Dean, Cas, and Charlie every day. But you're gonna keep choosing me and she's gonna see and then she's gonna hate you 'cause she's gonna think you're -"

"Messing with you?" Cas cut in.

"Yeah." Dean focussed on the subwoofer at the base of the TV stand. Cas stood, slowly, pulling his coat off the coffee table and dexterously sliding into it.  He looked down at Dean with a conflicted fondness.

"Aren't I?"

"Aren't you what?"

"You're considerably younger than I. I came to your aid in the midst of a medical crisis, then sent you to college with almost no attempt at anonymity. You've never given anyone any indication that you're anything other than heterosexual, and yet you managed to drunkenly experiment with the one man who it looks on paper like you might owe something to."

Dean cringed with a twinge of disgust at Cas's self incriminating deductions.   

"Fuck. It's not like that. Jesus." He suddenly looked small sitting wrapped around a throw pillow while Cas loomed above.  Cas sighed, making and releasing a fist.

"I like that I’ve made you question who you are. I admit, I enjoy your exclusive company and I don't think the world is any worse off now that you've had to consider the changes that would take place if you identified as bisexual, publicly.  But your empathy was already overworked, and I have enjoyed playing god a little too much. Charlie may as well know the truth before she puts me on some kind of pedestal just for maintaining good health and smooth skin. I have... messed with you." He ended his monologue gazing into Dean's eyes, but blinked away a moment later.  His hand ghosted towards Dean's head, but aborted and instead led the pivot that started him towards the door.

Dean panicked. Words were trifling and mostly meaningless and there was nothing worse than being left alone to figure out how the intangible claims of a somewhat philosophical diatribe would actually be applied to his physical reality, day to day. He liked yes or no questions (that got answered) and instructions, or at least clear declarations of intent.  

He stood and followed Cas to the door, pulling at his shoulder to quickly turn them face to face.  Dean then crowded forward, grabbing his coat and bumping Cas's head back against a spot on the entryway wall at least 5 inches higher than any other houseguest's head had ever bumped.  Cas impassively waited for some physical manifestation of anger.  He instead received a mouthful of Dean.

Dean kissed Cas with exactly none of the froth generated by chasing the man down.  He fit their mouths together like the pro that he was, gently, and with a strange purity of intent.  His hands didn’t wander from their positions, holding Cas’s coat in loose fists.  Cas was frozen, and barely breathing, but he had had the wearwithal to close his eyes, which made Dean more comfortable as he let his own flutter shut.  Cas eventually managed a small nuzzle and a breath to let Dean know he was mostly baffled, but not completely offline.  Before they knew it they had thoroughly moistened each other’s lips, and were beginning to breath in the scent of drying saliva, tinged with beer and buttered popcorn.

Dean’s observations raged down a narrow track at breakneck speeds.  This experiment was entirely unplanned, so he found that his go-to expectations were rooted in the fictitious descriptions supplied by the most feelsy of Dr. Sexy fics.  Dean was waiting for a barrage of synapses to fire off and inform him how very new, different and slightly off it was to kiss a manly man. He was supposed to be noting the sting of a light stubble and the added width of the jaw and the smell of woodsmoke and bacon and fresh hops.  The only problem was that Dean didn’t lean in to kiss Cas expecting a woman’s face.  No one had baited him with curves and fresh citrus lilac and then suddenly switched in his best friend at the last second.  The stubble and jawline and the scent of a crowded Sunday brunch (mixed with his own spit) were all presenting themselves to him correctly, being exactly where they were the last time Dean had looked at or breathed in Cas.  His mind found the new physical input to be completely logical, and therefore nothing to write home about.  

When not supplied with the oft hypothesized “WHOA, THIS IS A DUDE!” alarms, Dean was forced to the conclusion that all he was really doing out of the ordinary was kissing a person whom he genuinely liked quite a lot.  He pulled back with a kiss’s version of a stutter, but he did not move any further to reclaim the personal space that he’d always insisted on.  Cas stood still and blinked his eyes open, letting them fill with wonder instead of shooting off the usual wrinkles of confusion.

“What was that?”  Cas questioned earnestly, as if trying to confirm they both had just possibly seen a ghost whiz by.

“That, uh, is me.  Messing with you back.”  Dean repurposed his pride in the retort as confidence.

“Well done.” Cas swallowed and looked at the floor for a moment, then let his eyes dart back up to Dean’s lips.  Dean released Cas with slow deliberation that he prayed would read as suave nonchalance.  Cas brushed his palms on his coat.

“Well then, I will see you on the 20th.”

“Yeah. Drive safe, man.

Cas twisted, before self-aborting another attempt to leave.

“Will we be exchanging gifts?”  Cas asked abruptly.

“I certainly hope so.” Dean replied without filter.  He let his eyes fall to Cas’s mouth, and he watched it glisten as it twisted into a frown.  Cas cleared his throat, which made Dean jump.

“I meant that with less innuendo.  We got you gifts.  Sammy and me.”

“Less innuendo?”

“None. Not any. Get outta here, old man.”

 

........................

 

The following Monday found Dean wandering around Sammy’s campus with a triple shot Americano, trying to locate his frazzled and sleep-deprived little brother.  It was something nice that Sam had done for him once while he crammed for a test in the college library.  Returning the favor was an easy and rewarding way to kill some time on his day off.  He found Sam alone in the very section where he used to like to study.  The coffee was accepted with thanks and praise, but his attempt at conversation quickly turned Sam’s favor, and Dean left to wander the halls, trying to figure out a root back to the Impala that would keep him mostly indoors and out of the cold.

He was vaguely familiar with the layout of the departments, but he let his mind drift as he paused to read the occasional college-themed comic, torn off a 365 day calendar and taped meaningfully to a professor’s office door.  One office’s door stood ajar, and Dean paused to read a Marmaduke taped on the thin door frame window before noticing the same purple triangle sticker that Becky Rosen had proudly displayed on her door.

“The answer is, “no”.  I do not just have that sticker because I want to fit in.  I put that up because I believe it is my duty to help anyone who is willing to talk to me.”

Dean looked up with a start and saw a cherubic lady with curly black hair sitting behind a desk and nameplate that read “Dr. Missouri Mosely.”  He held up his hand and opened his mouth to - well, do something.  He wasn’t sure, but it was going to be dripping with Winchester charm.  Missouri held up a hand to stop him.

“And if you stop yourself from mentioning that you are not an enrolled student, then I’ll never know, and will operate under the assumption that you are enrolled, and therefore my solemn responsibility.”  She smiled, which made it easier for Dean to relax into a grin himself.

“How do you do that?”  

“Years of practice.  Now come in, child, and shut the door behind you.”

Dean paused, considered, and entered.  While the act itself felt a little out of character, it did fit nicely into his recent bout of embracing opportunities when they arose instead of letting them pass and then wondering about them for years to come.  He sat with a little groan in a plush leather chair across from Dr. Mosely.

“Now firstly I’d like to tell you that I am a Doctor of Psychology.  I consider everything that we speak about in this office to be confidential, and I will listen and respond to any of your questions as a Doctor first, and sympathetic ear second.  Now what can I call you?”

“I’m Dean.”

“Excellent.  Hello, Dean.  What’s on your mind?”

“Well, uh." Dean strained to keep his usual panic induced bravado in check.  "It’s come to my attention recently that for a straight guy I’m… pretty gay.”   He shifted in his chair and huffed out a quick smile of amusement at his own wording.  “I’m just kind of surprised.”

“And what specifically has you surprised?”

“Well on one hand I’m a pretty typical gym rat, car guy, bad boy type, but I’ve always been really a great role model, accepting of everyone else and down with however people want to live their lives.  So I guess I’m surprised that this whole thing snuck up on me.”

Dr. Mosely smiled encouragingly, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Would you care to describe this whole thing that snuck up on you?”

Dean placed his clammy palms on the arm rests and bounced in his chair a little.

“Sure.  Yeah.  So I meet a lot of women.  I sleep with a lot of women.  I was overseas for a little while, so maybe I was just making up for that or something.  But now, even though I still like women, I also am attracted to my friend who is a guy.”

Missouri raised an eyebrow.

“He’s bisexual so I didn’t come on to him and get punched in the face or anything.  It's actually pretty obvious that he's into me.”

Dean blushed a little when he realized that he had just opened up to a complete stranger in less time than it took to order a latte.  He shook it off.  He was in the office of a Doctor of Psychology.  It was not as if he had just unwittingly walked onto the set of some reality prank show.  Dr. Mosely may have given off a very strong “don’t mess with me, boy” vibe, but he could tell she was genuinely concerned for his well being, enough to speak her mind, even.

“So how would you like this new information to affect your life, Dean?”

Dean cringed.

“I’m not sure.  Does it have to?  I mean, I’m open to a whole new genre of porn, but other than that - I still like girls.  Chances are I’m going to end up with one for the long haul, so…. I mean, I’m probably never going to run out of eligible girls.”  Dean sighed and rubbed his forehead.  “God, I sound like an asshole.”

Missouri took a deep breath and hit dean with a soulful stare.

“Dean, you have the ability to blend in with the status-quo.  Homosexuals who want to pursue the apple-pie life in America do not have that, and I believe it’s making you feel guilty because you can see what they see and think what they think, but when it comes to dealing with the hateful adversity lobbed at them by the ignorant or religious zealots, you can choose to date the "right" person and get off scott free.”

Dean nodded, but Dr. Mosley didn't continue.

"Shit. I'm a huge asshole."

"Oh shush. It is not your responsibility to make your life more complicated for the benefit of others, especially when those others are an entire social justice movement, and not actually specific loved ones."

Dean visibly relaxed in his chair.

"That being said, please explain to me what the benefit of hiding this part of yourself would be."

Dean opened his mouth and shut it, then opened it again, only to cringe with his hand making a quick fist in midair as he mentally retracted whatever had been poised on the tip of his tongue.

"Look, I don't really date. If she's never gonna know my middle name then I don't need to go full disclosure on my kink list."

Missouri slid her drawer open and grabbed a well worn stress ball, and began kneading it with graceful force.

"My friends know I like sex. They assume with women. That's fine, they're mostly right. All that would change is they'd start setting me up with men, which I do not want."

"Why don't you want to be set up with men? You seem to have a ... healthy sexual appetite.  Why limit yourself?"

Dean paused and scratched at his eyebrow.

"Uh. I guess it would be weird for my friend if I started hooking up with dudes."

"Oh. Why on earth would it be weird for your friend who you've determined is attracted to you,  whom you've confessed to being attracted to yourself, if you started hooking up with other men?" Dr. Mosely's voice became cloyingly sweet as she cooed out a subtly scathing rhetorical question.

Dean scowled at her. Truth hurt and it made him look bad.  He was starting to wish he'd just lied and said he was looking for the bathroom.

"Alright so, that’s it?  What's your official diagnosis, then?" He grumbled.

"You, child, have commitment issues masquerading as a sexuality crisis. Why I'd bet my sweet bippy that if this "good friend" of yours had a va-jayjay then you'd be suddenly very interested in anonymous sex with men.  It sounds as if you will pursue whatever path can simultaneously stroke your ego and highlight the reasons you don't believe you are worthy of being involved in a loving relationship, long term.". Her eyes softened as she prepared for some gentler, more pampering words.  "Dean, whatever you do, please do not ever believe that there is any love or affection being offered to you that you do not deserve.  I'm not saying you must reciprocate in any way, romantic or platonic.  But you must never call yourself undeserving.”

Dean choked on a swallow, and punched his chest a few times before heaving in a deep breath.  His eyes were watering.  From the choking.

“You wouldn’t say this if you really knew me, though, Doc.  If you knew what I’ve done.  I’m not even sorry for most of it.  People want to believe in me, but that’s their problem.  Cas, he saves people.  He’s a doctor.  I take care of my brother and I run a gym.  You wipe me off the planet tomorrow, and Sammy and the gym wouldn’t miss a beat.”  Dean may have officially been shedding tears at this point.  It was unclear, so Missouri leaned forward to investigate.

“Who gave you the right to make decisions about likes and dislikes for other people?  All you can control is how honest you are.  If you feel like you’re hiding a game changer, then go ahead and let it out.  Your friends and lovers don’t need to know the specifics.  But they can see when you hold back in shame and they stick by you anyway, to try and show you that you’re alright by them, no matter what.”

“So what you’re saying is, I can’t just fall on my sword and reject everyone I really care about and say I did it for them so that they could find someone better?”  He said it jokingly, but there was a hint of sadness in his voice.  Missouri reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a rainbow colored lollipop.

“Congratulations on discovering your bisexuality, Dean.  Please feel free to come back and chat any time my door is open.  It’s open a lot.”

Dean accepted the lollipop.


	13. Storytime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas invites Dean over to "mess with him" again. Dean delivers, by messing with Cas's head, asking for the story of how Cas knew he was bisexual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI Y'ALL! Missed you. Hope your holidays were GREAT. We go full storytime here, instead of the usual flashback, so be sure to tell me if you think Cas's narration gets OOC. Also, heads up - there's a bit of a circle jerk. Who knew that was coming? Not me!

So it turned out that Dean was majorly overreacting to the idea of Charlie and Cas socializing. Charlie didn't smother Cas or plan the next three years of their social calendar. She was actually overwhelmed with her own holiday volunteering schedule, which she liked to fill to brimming in order to avoid dwelling on her total lack of immediate family.  She arrived at their yogurt date dressed as an elf, and she ran off with a bag of toys and kale chips over her shoulder, hobbling a little in her limited edition Chuck Taylors.

Dean and Cas sat at a tall metal table watching her go and both wondering how long you could sit in a frozen yogurt store after you'd finished eating, before being asked to move along.  The way the girls (and one very dainty boy) at the counter were giggling and peeking over, they probably had their run of the place.  

Dean was also giving himself a virtual lollipop for somehow not letting anything suggestive or weird go down under Charlie's sharp gaze. Cas had been very polite, and Dean was extremely relieved that all the enticing things he did with his body, or to draw attention to his slender fingers, were easily interpreted as normal behavior. Another way of saying that was 'oh fuck, everything Cas does is graceful and attractive.'  

It’s not that Dean hadn’t noticed right away that Cas’s awkwardness was imbued with a weirdly zen sense of calm.  It’s that now Dean could add to that the knowledge of what it felt like to push him out of his trance, and into a wall.  And it felt good.  Dean was a tall guy, impeccably built, so horseplay with the average girl involved a lot of gentleness and self control, which kind of defeated the purpose.  Cas felt like he was made of steel cord and duct tape.

“Earth to Dean.”  Cas brought Dean out of his head and back to the too-pink interior of the Yo Yo Yo Yogurt.

“Yeah? We should probably get out of here, right?”

“Probably.”  Cas looked at him.  He blinked.  He cleared his throat.  “You could come back to my place, if you’re interested in 'messing with me' some more.”  Lord love him, he made finger quotes around “messing with me”.  Dean leaned back in his chair and cringed.

“God, you’re a dork.”

“So no, then?”

“Nah, I’ll come by.”

………………………..

 

Dean followed Cas to his house in the Impala, lost in a daydream of possibilities.  Whatever nerves he was suppressing were manifesting in some pretty serious ADD, which was a good way to avoid getting too deep into the many hypothetical situations that he was inventing.  And the many hypothetical situations he was inventing did a good job distracting from the fact that Cas was his friend, and neither of them had ingested anything stronger than a few choice probiotics in the last few hours.

Cas was fiddling around with some bags in the backseat of his car when Dean pulled into the driveway behind him.  He pulled himself out of his car and welcomed Dean with a little wave, then turned and led them into the house.  Dean focused on taking even steps and breathing in and out and watching Cas’s ass in his faded dark wash jeans.  Dean had been checking guys asses out since he was a teen, but always in the  _damn, I wish I looked like that_ sort of way.  He’d never considered the desire to touch it.  Did he want to?  Had he always wanted to?  Perhaps that Dr. Mosley was off-base when she declared  Dean’s problem wasn’t a sexuality crisis.  On one hand, pop culture and everyone Dean interacted with on a regular basis would be ready to throw him a parade in support of any sexuality or gender identity he discovered within.  But that didn’t mean there wasn’t twenty-some odd years of macho programming that he’d have to break down before his own brain was comfortable shifting his chick-attuned gears into dude territory for real life.

They entered the house, and Cas went into the sitting room, where he turned, and then stood, hands by his sides.  Dean slowed to a stop in the doorway, looking around the room and licking his lips, nervously.  Cas narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, but quickly snapped out of his scrutiny and cleared his throat.

“I’m your friend, first, Dean. I’m not going to fill some generic quota of gratification and then just… go home.”

“We’re in your home.”

“You know what I mean.”  Cas’s sharp but empathetic gaze alluded to the morning after a one night stand as if it were some kind of rejection.  Dean held back a wince.  He wanted to argue that it wasn’t the leaving that hurt, it was the fact that he never once wanted them to stay that really made him feel like a monster.

Dean continued to worry his lip.  He was losing swagger by the second, and swagger was all that had been keeping him in motion as he drove to his older friend’s house to engage in an unestablished amount of hanky panky.  With women, his swagger easily maintained him until he had them moaning and sighing his name.  So he’d gotten Cas off once, what felt like a lifetime ago, and then gotten another reaction out of him using the element of surprise.  Those two incidents were proof of nothing, and no comfort when it came to devising his next move.    

“You... want some hot chocolate?” Cas smiled, shyly.

“Yeah that sounds good.”

Cas picked up the TV remote, flicking it on and then walked over and handed it to Dean.  Dean shrugged out of his jacket and settled on to the couch to find the Dr. Sexy reruns that were a staple of one of those guilty-pleasure cable networks.  Once located, he settled into the couch, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling his sleeves up to his elbows, finally getting comfortable in what had always been a safe place.

Just his luck, it was an episode where Dr. Sexy and lab tech Collins had numerous interactions.  There was a flare of Dr. Sexy jealousy when tech Collins flirted with his patient, and then a sexy standoff when Collins wouldn’t back down over a diagnostic disagreement, having enough pride in his own knowledge to argue with the renowned physician head-on.  It was unclear as to why Collins had any say in diagnosing anyone, being that he was just a lab tech, but the writers had no problems bending reality for drama.  And God, was it sexy.  Dean suddenly couldn’t help but picture the actors in the numerous positions and situations he had read about.   His mouth was suddenly dry and he wondered how the hot chocolate was coming along.

Cas returned with two steaming mugs, complete with marshmallows.  Dean snickered as he wondered if this was how Cas traditionally got into people’s pants.  Dean muted the TV to be polite.

“Would you like anything else?”

Dean couldn’t tell if there was a deeper meaning in the phrase, but he could easily imagine that there was.  Maybe it was an offer.  He could say “yes, please” and spread his legs a little and then Cas would get on his knees and -  But was that the question?  What did Cas want?  And what was he even offering?

“Uh, Cas?”  Dean was hit with a sudden, blinding moment of genius. “Can you tell me when you figured out you were bi?.

“Sure.”  Cas answered too easily for Dean.

“All of it.  Your first time.  Gorey details and everything.  Can you do that?”

Cas coughed and adjusted his position on the couch so that he was facing Dean, but still within arms length of his hot chocolate.  He looked at his lap and smiled at a memory, then looked up, avoiding Dean’s gaze.

“I’m not sure it’s the best story.”

“C'mon.  I’m not expecting some kind of choir boy orgy.”

“Well that would not be far from reality.”

“What?”  Dean furrowed his brows and adjusted himself face Cas better.  “I was thinking it’d be some awkward first time teen stuff.”

“That too.  There’s always that.”  Cas continued to look around the room, sometimes thinking, then snapping out of it, but only sheepishly making eye contact.

“Look I’ll start. Hi I’m Dean and I just realized I’m bi. The first dick I touched in a sexy way belonged to Castiel Novack.  The first dude I kissed was Castiel Novack - If we don’t count some kid named Jesse in pre-school, but at the time I didn’t know if he was a boy or a girl, so no, we won’t count him.  Then I read a bunch of Dr. Sexy fan fiction porn which I found frighteningly errotic. Then I may or may not have made some purchases based on said fan fiction, and discovered some new and exciting things about my body.  The end.  Your turn.”

Cas blinked at Dean from behind his mug of hot chocolate.  Dean smirked.  Cas was obviously caught up picturing Dean’s experimental phase, and the fluster was reenergizing Dean’s swagger.  He reached his foot over and nudged Cas in the leg.

“Spill.”

Cas carefully placed his drink on the side table.

“I don’t know if I told you, but I come from a very religious family.  We attended a very strict church, which also ran the school I went to all week.  I attended from kindergarten to my junior year.”

“That’s a lot of church.”

“Yes it was.”  Cas looked distant, and sighed through his nose.  “When I was sixteen -”

“What’d you look like?” Dean cut in.

“Uh.  Small for my age.  A little gangly, I guess.  I was not athletic at the time.  Anyway, our congregation was not very large, so I had grown up with the same small group of friends since kindergarten.  They were all boys, since everyone always encouraged the boys and the girls to play separately to avoid any temptations of the flesh.”

“Little did they know…” Dean raised his eyebrows, wiggling his elbow towards Cas, who side-eyed him with a little frown.

“I suppose, yes.  I tended to like to stay under the radar and avoid trouble, but a couple of my friends were the kind of boys who delighted in being as crude as possible.  It would make me uncomfortable, but I never complained because in the end it seemed like a good way to glean information about puberty and figure out where I measured on a scale of normal to freak of nature.  Most of the time they made me feel better.  But the summer I was sixteen they were worse than ever, acting out just enough to have the elders breathing down all our necks, ordering our parents to keep us in at night and fill all our time with church-related functions so that we didn’t stray from the path of the righteous.”

“I am so excited to hear how this backfires.”  Dean was grinning with glee.  His enthusiasm made Cas chuckle and lifted the older man’s tone a bit.

“We had what’s called a ‘lock-in’ one Saturday.  The youth group sponsored an all-night event that involved a scavenger hunt and some religious movies and games.  It was an event for boys and girls, the thought being that we would be all together and supervised the entire time.  It would have worked, but Samandriel fell during a game of volleyball and broke his wrist.  It was after 11 and his parents were out of town, so Pastor Zachariah had to take him to the hospital and stay with him through the night.  That left Naomi and Rachel to watch all of us, but they were so hung up on impropriety between the sexes that they simply ordered all six of us boys into the windowless kindergarten classroom, and told us we could only leave to use the bathroom.”

“What kind of kindergarten classroom is windowless?”

“The high school classrooms and cafeteria were in the basement of the church, until they walled off one corner for the kindergartners.”

“Alright, that’s all weird. I don’t care. Go on.”

Dean was on the edge of his seat, breathing slowly and quietly, in anticipation of the true-life tale of six horny Christian boys locked in the windowless kindergarten classroom.  His mind was full of warring emotions.  Was it hot?  Ew. they were kids.  Also, the likelihood of them all being gay was pretty slim. So what were they gonna do to one another?  Is this what all close-knit groups of teen boys ended up doing, ‘cause he sure as hell never came close.  Unless Cas was just going to say he fell in love with one of the guys.  But realistically, Cas didn’t seem to be laying all this groundwork to reveal some secret crush situation.  

“My friend Gabriel was the oldest, and the wildest talker.  He would swipe underwear catalogs out of his neighbor’s mailboxes and peruse them in the church balcony stairwell on Sundays.  He also had an older cousin, aptly named Lucifer, who let him watch some actual porn on VHS.  Or so he said.  I never had the guts to demand he prove himself. Regardless, it made whatever he said about sex, law.”

Cas squirmed a little, and grimaced into his empty hot chocolate mug.

“Yeah I get it.  Gabriel’s about to make you do some kinky shit.  Don’t feel guilty.  Just let it all out.  You’ll feel better.”

“Alright. Alright!”  Cas held up his hand to quell Dean’s asinine encouragements. “So we talk and drink Mountain Dew late into the evening, and sometime after midnight Gabriel starts lecturing us on how important it is that we appear to be experienced during our first hand job.  At first I argued that we should be receiving said hand job from someone we liked an awful lot, so we shouldn’t have to lie to them.  Everyone laughed in my face, and Balthazar threw a six inch ruler at me.  After some more discussion Gabriel decided that the six of us needed to pair off and give each other hand jobs with the intent being to see who lasted the longest.”

Cas began pointing his words at his lap, as he rubbed his forehead in some kind of subconscious angst.

“The rules were that each person had to sit with their eyes closed tight and imagine the girl of their choice was the one touching them.  I believe the theory at the moment was that doing it yourself would make it easy to ‘cheat’ so it had to be someone else.  And then the pairing off was to, in Gabriel’s words, ‘reduce performance anxiety.’  Gadreel swiped a bottle of hand lotion from the teacher’s desk drawer, and suddenly everyone was groping at themselves, trying to get hard.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.”  Dean waved his hands in the air, lazily.  “How did no one notice that this was all super gay?  Wasn’t that hardcore against the church rules?”

Cas considered the question for a moment, looking for the right words.

“We were so expertly sheltered that as far as we knew homosexuality was some crazy perversion that happened in the Old Testament.  Obviously no one who was gay was interested in coming to our church, and we were hardly allowed access to popular culture, so there was no one for the pastor to make an example of.  Rest assured, we knew we were breaking some rules regarding masturbation, at least, but Gabriel was insisting it was for good reason because we’d need to be able to please our wives, and chances were high that no one was teaching the girls anything about sex.”

“Little did they know…”  Dean cut in again.  Cas angled his gaze 20 degrees CCW.  “I’m just saying, Catholic school girls - whew.  I’ve been schooled by a few.”

“We were not Catholic.”  Cas pouted slightly for the suddenly less-than-chaste reputation of religious girls everywhere.  

“Off topic.  Let’s get back to the part where you’re all deciding who’s gonna whack each other off.”

Cas sighed.

“I wish your crassness were unwarranted, but it is appropriate.  Three of us drew names, and I got paired off with Michael.  He was one of the more confident ones, so I supposed I was lucky.  And he was very attractive.  He wanted to go first, and started the trend of publicly stating which girl he was imagining.  He chose Hannah, who was a year below us, and once his eyes closed, he called me Hannah for the duration.  It was strange, but it made it easier for me, being able to role-play what Hannah would do  instead of worrying about what Michael would think of my hand job skills.”

“What’d he think?  He come all over you?”  Dean looked devilish as the long rays of the setting sun highlighted his cheeks and shadowed his eyes.

“No.” Cas blushed. “We were supposed to finish ourselves.  Gabriel handed out tissues.  It was all very well organized, for how fucked up it was.”

Castiel’s voice sounded better saying “fucked up” than anyone else’s.  Dean was sure of this.

“When Michael was clean and had his breath back, we compared the times of the first set and I don’t know how long we took.  It felt like forever.  Anyway, his was the time to beat for the second round-”

“Get it? ‘Beat’?”  Dean lifted his foot and kicked Cas, playfully.  

“Michael demanded I let him know what girl I was thinking of.”  Cas continued, casting a quick glare in response to Dean’s pun.  “I picked Anna, because we were friends, which turned out to be a bad idea.  Gabriel was in the second string, and he was accross the room muttering about all the filthy things he was going to do to Rachel, the youth pastor’s wife.  I felt bad lumping Anna into that mess.  I just wanted to get it over with.  I had my eyes shut as tight as I could, and I was concentrating on how good it felt, because if I let my mind wander I’d begin to lose it, and then finally after I had beaten everyone else’s time, Michael got frustrated and said something like ‘if you want to switch to another girl that’s fine.  Picture whoever you want.’   Michael was always the boss.  Gabriel was the leader, but Michael kept us in our places.  He was also the handsomest of us.  And here he was trying to coax me to orgasm in front of all our friends.   So I took his advice and pictured whoever I wanted.  I let myself bask in the power that I had at that moment as the coolest, bossiest, cutest boy angrily tried to get me off.  Finally, I couldn’t resist, and I opened my eyes-”

Dean’s hands were fisted on his thighs in anticipation.

“- and I came all over him.  I had won, but I was ‘disqualified’.  Michael never again looked at me if he didn’t have to, and enough ‘Castiel is a little weird’ rumors started circulating that my mother decided to let me finish my senior year at a public high school.”

Dean breathed out, half in relief, half in a growl.

“Wait.  Six of you jerked each other off and only YOU get singled out as the oddball?”

Cas shrugged.

“It is what it is.  It might have been Michael’s mom, trying to divert negative attention from her son.  I think Michael lives with a man in San Francisco now, or something like that.  I’ve lost touch with my ‘brothers in the Lord’ over the years.”

“So Michael’s gay?”  Dean sounded incredulous.  “Do I have to worry about some beautiful man coming to steal you away from us?”

“That’s unlikely.  I had no love for the man.  I hardly liked him.  I was just more easily aroused by him than my friend Anna.”

“Ah.”  Thanks to Dean’s swing and a miss at levity, the conversation was dead.  The sky had darkened outside as they talked, and the room felt chillier without the direct rays of the sun on the dark furniture.  Dean wasn’t sure what to do with the emptiness.  He had come over feeling vulnerable and inexperienced, so he’d made Cas confess, which was supposed to put them on more even ground.  Instead, he felt like Cas had bared his soul and left Dean in the position of owing.  But he had nothing to give that didn’t sound like an excuse, or a pathetic sob story about his fear of being left behind.

Dean’s internal search for his next offering was interrupted by Cas’s lips on his mouth.   The older man had shifted forward like a serpent, and they were suddenly pressed together, kissing on the couch.  Dean responded with his usual enthusiasm as all the reasons kissing Cas was great came rushing back to him: steel cord and duct tape, full lips, hot chocolate and cedar, best friend.

“Best friend” slowed Dean’s lips, and shifted his weight off of his knees and back onto his butt to pull him away.  “Best friend” made him grab his confused friend’s face in his hands, almost roughly and look angrily into his eyes.  “Best friend” had his mind racing ahead, jumping a marathon of hurdles in order to fix what he had only broken a split second ago.

“Listen.” Dean stared into Cas’s worried expression.  “We’re going to be in Vegas in two weeks.  Next year.  Jo’s gonna kick some chick’s ass.  Then we’re gonna go out, you and I, and drink and gamble wander around congratulating people who just got hitched by fat Elvis, and I’m gonna bring my Visa Black card and pull you into whatever ridiculous hotel you want so that you can do whatever it is that guys do to each other, to me.  And it’s gonna be awesome.  But I have to go.  Now.  You be safe for Christmas.  Text me.  I’ll text you.”  

He released Cas’s face from his vice grip, and couldn’t help but grin as his cheeks spread out to their natural positions over his skull.  Cas sat back, slowly, babying a bulge in his groin that Dean preferred not to acknowledge at that moment.  Dean stood up, pulled his jacket on, and stepped over to the doorway.

“Thank you, for tonight.  For -”  Dean didn’t know what to call it.  Was it too lame to thank Cas for talking to him?  “Just thanks.  I’ll see you, Cas.”

 


	14. Playing doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas and Dean do Las Vegas as only the best friends-to-lovers can (meaning they are both acutely aware of unwanted feelings that will probably chase them home, but have decided that emotional caution is for chumps). Jo kicks some ass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> m/m smut! Finally! It has arrived!  
> IMPORTANT NOTE: Coconut oil is NOT recommended as a lubricant in conjunction with latex condoms. We are all going to remember that. Technically Cas should know that as well, but let's all pretend that in this universe, it's an acceptable combination. OR we could pretend that Cas is using some kind of sheepskin fancy-ass condom that doesn't lose its integrity when exposed to virgin oils.
> 
> So...  
> Apparently this is my white whale. My output dropped down to, like, 32 words per WEEK when I got to this part.  
> Needless to say, I love you all for reading, love you more for commenting, will try to update faster, my endless apologies, blah blah blah.  
> Now go enjoy some man sex!

The Vegas trip started out all business.  It was about Jo, and her fight, and it was a big deal.  There was sponsor gear to wear and junkets to attend and a weigh-in for Jo to starve for.  There were lights and cameras and crowds of tourists from all over the US as well as Ireland and Brazil, glad for an excuse to come see Vegas in person while supporting their favorite athletes.  Cas was nothing more than an occasionally helpful, quiet observer.  His medical know-how came in handy when he was able to gently hook Jo up to an IV to get her fluids up after she made weight.  Dean hadn’t even considered that, inviting Cas with only pleasure in mind.

But on fight night Cas was purely a spectator, and he watched in grave awe as Dean and Bobby vociferously counseled Jo on the public pommeling of another young lady.

Her competitor was torn apart, busted open above her eye by a hard left hook, face sliding through her own blood as Jo submitted her at the halfway point of the second round.  Before she truly registered that it was all over, Dean was pulling a Winchester Iron tee shirt over her head, and the referee was raising her hand in victory.  Cas vacillated between emotional tears and half of an erection.  Mixed Martial Arts was a strange dichotomy of rule-clad chaos, and he wasn’t sure yet if he loved it or hated it.

Regardless, it was all suddenly over, and the gang was left with roughly 36 hours to celebrate their victory in Sin City.  

Dean was high on the adrenalin of the win.  The sense of accomplishment was dizzying, even if all he did was yell things to Jo that she technically already knew. He was her back-up and her look-out, and he and Bobby served her well.  It was a rush.

It was a rush that the thrill of low-stakes gambling just could not compare to, but Dean’s next source of adrenaline was his haphazardly scheduled sexual rendez vu with Cas, so he needed a lull in which he could gather his thoughts- or lose himself. Whichever calmed him more.  Jo seemed a bit lost as well, not knowing where to go to bask in her success.  She was physically exhausted, but too wired to fall asleep.  She followed Dean and Cas out to the strip, letting herself gaze around like a tourist, head always angled so that the lights were glittering in her eyes.

After a good amount of wandering, Dean picked a casino and pulled Jo and Cas inside.  The casino floor seemed welcoming enough to three adults wearing zip-up sweatshirts, and the change machine by the door allowed Dean to feed in a twenty without having to go sign up for some casino card or whatever other gimmick they were running to trap gamblers there forever.

Dean smiled at his little bucket of quarters, offering it to Cas and Jo.  Cas declined, but Jo grabbed three, and picked three different machines all in a line.  She didn’t get lucky, and promptly gave up, not willing to taint her perfect victory with the sting of being a loser at the slots.  Dean shrugged and wandered around until he found a game called Muscle Car Madness that seemed to be emblazoned with a very nearly copyright infringing drawing of the Impala. Jo rolled her eyes, and Cas just smiled as they both silently agreed to find a place to sit now that they knew exactly where Dean would be.

They found comfy couch in front of a large flat-screen, lobby TV and settled in.

"You look pretty happy, Cas."

"I am very content.  You seem excited as well. As you should be."

"Yeah."  Jo sounded wistful.  "I think this is all I ever wanted."

”Isn’t there some kind of belt to continue competing for?”

“Oh yeah.  No, winning was awesome.  I mean the team and like, hanging out right now.  This.”  She swept her arms in an all-encompassing circle that included the direction of Dean and his Impala slots.

Cas furrowed his brow.

"A trip to Vegas with Dean is all you ever wanted?  Were you hoping to capitalize on the decreased inhibitions?  I apologize," he shifted in his seat, "but I believe in this situation I am what you would refer to as a cock block.  Or the female equivalent.  A va-"

"Shut up, no!" Jo cut him off.  "I mean, I've just always wanted to be one of the guys.  But I never wanted to be that girl who's all flirty and possessive and tells everyone she's only got guy friends.  It's like..."

Jo reached out, unconsciously, then set her hands on her thighs and breathed out, squinting at the wall as she clarified her thoughts.

"It's like I thought none of them really saw me.  They saw me -"  she gestured at her womanly form - "but they didn't see ME.  And I  always thought Dean was the coolest, so if he liked me and everyone knew it then they would look at me different because I was someone Dean thought was awesome."  Jo blushed.

Cas turned his head, but his expression was caught between care and anger.

"While I concur that Dean is ...the coolest, I am distressed that you feel that his approval is necessary to validate the fact that you are an amazing person.  Surely you didn't become such an accomplished athlete just for the attention?"

"Well no.  I really do love to beat the shit out of things.  And don't call me Shirley."

Cas reread her closing sentence in his mind, once, twice.  He blinked, referred back to his own words, and finally a small smile blossomed in the corner of his mouth.  Jo whooped as if she'd hit the jackpot, and jumped up from the couch.  

"Wooo! I just made Cas smile!"  She pointed an accusing finger at him. "I did it. I'm officially one of the guys!  Eat it, bitches!"

Dean's head whipped around as he heard Jo's yells echo over the distance between them.  He gave them a questioning look.  Two scantily-clad cocktail waitresses striving to appear to be in their early thirties tottered by on their unbelievable heels, bothering only to roll their eyes at Jo's outburst.  Jo sat back down with a huff.

"Shit.  I gotta watch it.  Thought I was going to have to fight them."

"Yes.  Watch it.  Their job probably requires a good deal of tolerance, but I would not be comfortable throwing down with a person capable of wearing deadly weapons as footwear."

Jo clutched her stomach and giggled herself to tears as Cas's smile continued to grow.  

“If you’re feeling properly hydrated, then I believe it is time to locate some drinks.”

“Oh, I’m ready.  Lead the way.  You’re buying.”

Cas nodded his consent and they wandered towards the nearest bar that still seemed to be within eyeshot of Dean, who was beginning to pull his lever with a zombie-like lack of expression that was concealing a rather colorful inner monologue.

_I'm taking Cas to a hotel tonight. Quarter. Someone could figure it out. Pull lever. Mustang. Pickup. El Camino. Damn. What does it even matter? Quarter. It's who I am right? Pull lever. Spinning. Or I could just NOT have a gay thing with my best friend and no one would have to deal with this. Oh, it stopped. No match. Fuck. Quarter. Pull lever. I could find a nice girl willing to stick shit in my ass. Two out of three. Free play. Awesome. Pull lever. Who am I kidding? All I do around nice girls is try to save them from scum like me. No match. Quarter. I could get on a dating website. Pull lever.  Maybe it could ask for my kinks and match me up with real firecracker, like that Pam chick. No match. Quarter. Pull lever. Why the fuck would I do Pam over Cas? Just 'cause Cas is a dude? People die for this shit and I'm going to pussy out because it's socially inconvenient? Christ, I'm an asshole. Dr. Moseley hit the nail on the fucking head. What the hell is that ringing sound?_

At the bar Cas ordered something with decorative fruit while Jo threw back a tall gin and tonic like someone’s surly grandmother.  It was then that Cas realized Jo was too young to be drinking, but no one seemed to care.  They didn’t have much time to worry about it, as Dean distracted them with his whooping cheer.

“Guys! I just won $175!  Guys!?  Hey, anyone?”

Cas and Jo popped out from behind his machine and cheered at him, waving their drink-free hands.  The sound of falling coins drowned out most of their yelling, but Dean appreciated the effort, giving them each a big hug and swiping two large gulps of Jo’s drink.

“Cas, man, what are you drinking?”  Dean eyed the beverage and it’s three separate fruit garnishes (a pineapple, cherry, orange-kabob) with distaste.

“I asked for something light, with pineapple in it.  This is what they gave me.  I like it.  It’s not syrupy sweet like some fruity cocktails.  I gave the bartender a good tip.”

“Okay then.”  Jo cut in, “thanks for your drink’s life story.  What do you guys want to do now?”

Dean and Cas quickly shared a look that they desperately hoped Jo would miss.  

“Well now I have $175 to gamble away.  Should I do it fast or slow?”

“FAST.” Jo grabbed for his wrist, and Dean grabbed for his bucket of coins, and Cas made a point of checking out Dean’s ass as he followed behind, letting a gurgle sound from his cup as he slurped the remaining liquid.

“Drinks first.” He interjected. “I’d like another one of these.”

Dean turned around to tease his friend, and plucked the fruit-kabob out of Cas’s fingers, sliding the pineapple off the stick with his teeth before plunking the rest of the garnish back into the cup.  Cas just grinned. Jo rolled her eyes.

"Jeez you could save your money and use it to get a freaking room."

Dean's grin froze on his lips as Cas suddenly needed to examine the carpet. It lasted just long enough for Jo to droop her head to the side in curiosity, before Dean reanimated and grabbed her hand.

"C'mon, winner. Red or black?"

"Red. No! Double zero!" Jo shouted.

And this was how Dean made a little over $6,000 in five minutes.  

 

"Be sure to tip the dealer...spinner guy." Jo hissed, as Dean stared at the stacks of hundred dollar chips the dealer was pushing towards him.

"How are you the youngest person here?" Dean hissed back. "You sound like Kenny Rogers and you drink old lady drinks."

"Fuck you. How much of that are you gonna give me?"

"All of it." Dean dumped it into Jo's waiting hands. "Oh wait. For the room." He reached in and took six hundred back for himself, following up with a saucy wink. 'All in' had been working out for him so far.

"And one more for my frilly drinks." Cas intoned, skimming another $100 off the top. Dean smiled too hard and smacked Cas on the ass.

"That's my girl."

Cas closed his eyes in silent mirth. Jo only let her jaw drop for a second before she was gazing back down at her winnings, lovingly.

"Well fine. Three's a crowd. I'm gonna go get Bobby's sorry ass out of bed and make it rain at a titty bar!" She whirled around, only letting them catch the side of her evil grin. Dean wrinkled his nose in disgust at the idea of strippers and Bobby. Cas on the other hand seemed to be considering whether he should follow her.  Dean scowled at him and grabbed his wrist.

"Get over here, Copa Cabana."

 

Dean pulled him over to the nearest bar and plunked a fifty on the counter.

 

"Hey I'll take one of those fruit festivals for this guy, and whatever drink you think has the most homoerotic garnish, for me. Make that two. Two each."

 

Cas made an amused noise as he slid his cherry off his little sword.  The bartender acted as if this wouldn't even break the top fifty of her strangest orders list, and Dean finally realized that the only person who currently cared about who put what up his where was him.  This should not have been headline news, but it was welcomed nonetheless.  He took a moment to drink in the sight of his friend.

“Dude.  Are you seriously wearing a fanny pack?”

“It’s a belt bag.  It’s vintage.”  Cas squinted across the casino floor in an attempt to deflect Dean’s teasing.

“You’re vintage.” Dean said, into his glass, poorly concealing an affectionate grin.

...........................

The two men flirted their way from one casino to the next, in their own unique style, which appeared to the outside observer a lot like two bros stuck in a game of platonic affection chicken.  Dean liked to touch Cas, but never below the shoulders.  Cas liked to creep up and stand too close to Dean, catching quite a few elbows to the chest as Dean whirled around to look for him.  Those infractions were always followed by some gentle patting to ensure Cas was okay.

Finally, as they were nearing the end of the strip, Dean tugged Cas, by the sleeve, into the Luxor.  Instead of heading to the casino, he guided them to the empty check-in line.  

“You cool with the pyramid hotel?”  Dean asked, a little unsure.

“Yes.  I like it.”  

Dean looked around for a desk clerk, but the counter was unattended for the moment.  He slid an elbow onto the smooth marble, and rested his head on his hand.

“I was kinda pissed when I found out that pyramids had four sides.  Seems like they should have three.  Stick with the whole triangle thing.”

Castiel bit his lip.  Dean Winchester was aware that his looks made him nearly irresistible, but he didn’t seem to realize that he carelessly pushed Cas’s affections into dangerous, unconditional territory on a regular basis.

“It would drastically reduce interior space, but I agree that it would have been more logical.”

“See? You’re smart, and you get it.  Sam can cram it with walnuts.”

Just then the desk clerk came blearily out of the secret back room that all hotels seem to have behind the check-in area.

“Hey there, finally.  Can we get a room?”  Dean stood up straight, tapping his wallet on the counter.

“Of course, sir. One bed?”  The question sounded robotic, and Dean wondered how many flannel sporting  bros just nonchalantly decided to hook up at 2am in Vegas.  He turned and gave Cas a look and a shrug that said guess he figured us out.

“Sure, one bed.  The nicest room $600 can get us.  I don’t know if that gets us a jacuzzi or what.”

The clerk grinned and began typing away.

“We have one Tower Deluxe Suite open, and that would be $250.  Will that be alright?”

“I’ll take it.”  He turned to Cas.  “Guess we’ll have some gambling money left over.”  

.........

Dean scanned the key card, but the light remained red.  He flipped it over and tried again, mentally urging it on as he thrilled at the simple tickle of Cas's fingertips snaking under the hem of his shirt to swirl around the small of his back.  

"We're in." He said with a conspiratorial side-eye.

"Yes. That's what keys do." Cas explained. "Oh wait, are we role playing?  Would you find this more satisfying if we pretended there was a high probability of interruption?

Dean reached behind himself and grabbed Cas's wrist, holding it on his back while barreling them into the room.

"You know what? Hindsight is 20/20." Dean pivoted around, keeping Cas's wrist captured.

"That's not an answer." Cas pressed his fingers forward to explore Dean's stomach in the same way they had just caressed his back.

"It means you can ask questions about how to improve the sex after the sex."  Dean watched Cas's hand on his core with a tipsy admiration. For a moment it felt so new, like Cas was a stranger. Castiel Novak, a name on paper that he thought was an old woman. The sexy fireman, answering his door with bed head and then reaching out to pet Dean's tummy.  "I'm drunk. The good kind."

"The chatty kind." Cas stepped back and pulled his shirts over his head, tossing them onto the floor.  Dean simply enjoyed the view for a moment, before scraping himself out of his shoes and socks.  Bored with that, he lunged forward to lick at Cas's neck.  It was hard and tendony, just like it looked.  He reached up and brushed over a nipple, wondering if it felt as good to Cas as it did when he played with his own.

"Nipples, Cas?"

"Yes. You've located one of the two.”

Dean tilted his head down to give Cas a long glare through his eyebrows which seemed to say _c'mon now. I'm not that drunk_ and _hey, come hither_  at the same time. To prove his partial sobriety  Dean released his friend, and took a small step back.  It was just far enough to send a flash of confusion through Castiel’s otherwise sexed expression, but not far enough for Dean to miss the heat coming from his body and the shallow breaths glancing off his cheeks.

"I want to do new and unspeakable things with you, Cas, but I can't concentrate if you keep making bitchy remarks." Dean held his hands up, palms down, in the universal _let's take it down a notch_ formation.

Cas balked for a second, then stepped forward with slow deliberation.

"I apologize."

Dean nodded his forgiveness then without moving away, stripped off his own shirt as a reward. Cas gently rested one hand on Dean’s hip while the other caressed Dean's side, all the while gazing at the motion of his fingers, pinching the skin a little. Dean's breath stuttered, and he craned his neck forward to watch.

"Is this something that guys do? Rib play?"

"Aside from a youthful transgression, I have no idea what guys do, in plural. But I don't understand how anyone could be with you without taking advantage of the opportunity to touch every inch of your body."  The hand resting on Dean’s hip slid around to his back, then slowly pressed downwards.

Dean blinked as his mind was flooded with the feeling of rightness that came with being desired. It was the sexual equivalent of polishing off a half dozen donuts within a span of two hours- embarrassing, probably wrong, but oh so fulfilling.  lt acted like a third hand sliding soothingly down his spine and overriding a thousand of his most immediate hesitancies.  He arched his back subtly, in response, and crept a hand up to the back of Cas’s neck in order to direct their mouths together.  

He hadn’t known how to approach their rendezvous.  In his worst-case-scenario fantasies it devolved into an almost clinical study of sex with a man, with emphasis on Cas’s advanced years and experience, and Dean’s youthful ineptitude. Now as Cas’s tongue was gently teasing his own it was becoming easier to envision successful sexy times ahead.   (Dean had planned on being drunk enough to shut his foresight down, but it was currently working in his favor, so he set his self-loathing regarding that fuck-up aside.)

Cas tasted like rum-soaked fruit.  Dean smiled, and felt Cas’s lips tighten into a responding grin.  Their hands skated along each other’s torsos, and Dean was suddenly struck with the need to feel the hardness of Cas.  He turned them, and pressed Cas backwards until the bed hit the back of his thighs and threatened his balance.  Cas threw his hands back in response, and sat down, crawling himself backwards onto the bed.

“I can't get over the fanny pack.”  Dean shook his head as he crawled over his friend with a feline grace, enjoying his ability to loom without feeling physically threatening.

“You’ll thank me later.”  Cas mumbled, between reaching kisses to Dean’s neck.

“Oh really?”  Dean unzipped the fashion offense, and coughed out a laugh. “You packed a sex kit?”

“Be prepared.”  Cas breathed, making the ‘live long and prosper’ sign with his free hand.

Dean chuckled, zipping the bag back up and unbuckling it, to drop it gently on the floor next to the bed.  He went to work on Cas’s jeans next, and Cas shimmied and squirmed to help him out.  Dean rolled off of Cas to follow suit, kicking his jeans and boxer briefs to the side before rolling back into position above the shorter man.

“Just like old times.”  Dean joked, shakily.

“Do you need me to turn the lights out?”  Cas asked, with a hint of curiosity behind the tease.

“Nah.  I’m super gay for a nice set of abs, remember?”  Dean swayed back onto his heels and licked up the crease from Cas’s belly button to just under his pecs.

Cas was tan and chiseled, and his low moan of pleasure as Dean brushed over him was like an incredibly masculine pur.  Dean let his eyes roam down his torso to their equally hard cocks, Cas’s against his stomach with Dean’s bobbing above.  

“Jesus, when we went swimming at the lake, I couldn’t stop looking at you.  I told myself I was just jealous.”   Dean blushed.  Cas just chuckled.

“Oh, is that what that is?  I suppose I’ve been jealous of you for quite a while now.”

Dean slid his knees apart, sinking his body onto Cas’s, letting them get caught up haphazardly between each other.  He let gravity press their chests together, and propped his elbows on either side of Cas’s head, hovering his mouth just teasingly out of reach.

“How long, Cas?”

Castiel blinked in confusion.  Dean’s heart climbed into his throat as he watched the warring of Cas’s expressions,  playful nonchalance against earnest affection.  But Dean couldn’t be assed to care, at this point.  He wasn't  accustomed to being more than a passing fancy in anyone’s mind.  No matter the outcome, he planned on taking advantage of everything that made Cas different.  The fact that it was so much more than just a penis and lack of tits was somewhat terrifying, but he was figuratively balls deep at this point, and there was no turning back now.

“How long what, Dean?”  Cas was stalling.

“How long have you wanted to do this?”

Cas blinked, shifting his gaze uneasily from Dean's left eye to his right.

“Since you woke me up in the middle afternoon and thanked me for your college education.”  Cas reached down and grasped them both gently in his hand. "Getting to know you has not made it any easier." He pumped his fist up and down around them, with a few determined strokes.  

"Oh boo hoo." Dean moaned, eyes fluttering shut with delight. "You haven't been torturing yourself with chapters and chapters of Dr. Sexy fan fiction porn. I'm practically hard any time I see you in scrubs." He wiggled his hips to generate a little more friction within Cas's grip.

"I've been torturing myself with fantasies of an unattainable, younger, straight man." Cas reached his free hand forward to grasp Dean's ass, shutting down Dean's micro thrusts. Dean let out a little whine.

"Yeah, not so much."

Cas’s hum of pleased agreement felt like someone had taken a drill to the bedframe.  He let their cocks slip from his grip.

“Show me.”  Cas ordered, then suddenly squirmed beneath Dean to reach over the side of the bed and retrieve his belt bag.

“Show you…?”

“Show me how not straight you are.”

Dean thought quickly as he snatched a little sailing jar of (coconut oil) lube out of the air where Cas had tossed it.  His cheeks flushed pink, which was a feat in his already aroused state.

“I’d be skipping a mandatory shower step.  And I do mean mandatory.”  Dean admitted, bluntly.

Another jar of oil plunked onto the bed beside them.  Cas tried to tame his toothy grin into a smirk.

“Don’t skip the shower.  By all means, shower.”

"You gonna join me?”

Cas succeeded in reading Dean’s very forward invitation as overcompensation to cover his nerves.

“No.”

Dean fell to his side and bounced into a standing position on the floor, lube in hand.

“Then I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”  Cas dipped his fingers into the second jar of oil and let it melt down to his palm.  He then began stroking himself with a gentle rhythm.  Dean swallowed hard, then whipped around to skitter off to the bathroom.

“Leave the door open.”  Cas called after him.  

The sound of running water filled the suite.  Cas hooked one arm behind his head and jerked himself languidly with the other as condensation seemed to settle on his sternum.

Dean hopped into the hot shower with a fluttering stomach, and the beginning signs of an adrenalin dump, which he really wanted to avoid. Not that Cas wasn't understanding, but Dean had been teasing this sexcapade for a while now. He certainly wasn't nervous or anything.  This just required a new level of cleanliness, and he wasn't a porn star, so he wasn't sure what the acceptable standard for your typical gay-man-on-the-street was. At home he mostly played with his new toys in the shower, where any evidence that he was delving into a piece of his digestive tract was always quickly washed away, running together with the suds of manly soaps and smooth lube.

He sudsed up. He scrubbed aggressively with a washcloth. He oiled up and dove in with a finger, worrying more about what he'd find than the abrupt intrusion.  

_Chicks probably don't see their vaginas, like, ever. Ouch. That's gotta suck. I guess I've never seen my taint. Or my asshole. Well, in the mirror, but it was foggy. Last person who really saw my asshole was probably a doctor. Cas is like a doctor. He sees all kind of shit. Thank fucking god._

Dean was suddenly emboldened.

"Hey, Dr. Sexy! How clean do I need to be?"  Dean poked his head out from behind the curtain, craning his neck to see out the open bathroom door.

"Are you asking if I have an aversion to fecal matter?" Cas responded, clinically, voice drifting through the haze.

"No, man. I'm assuming everyone has an aversion to fecal matter. So what do I do to- is there- what's a deal breaker here?"

Dean listened intently, not sure if Cas laughed, or if the running water was playing tricks on his ears.

"If you're that worried, I have rubber gloves in my- fanny pack." Dean could hear Cas's glee at the horrible pun.

"Oh ha ha ha." Dean paused his sarcasm. He was getting sidetracked, and there was a danger he would get giggly if it got late enough. "Fine. It's been a long time since I've played doctor."

Dean stepped out of the shower and toweled off vigorously. He dropped the towel and checked himself out in the steamy mirror.  He was flushed, hard, and pretty cut due to his sympathy dieting for Jo. Nothing like being attractive to calm his first-time nerves.

He swaggered to the bed, taking in the sight of naked and erect Cas, noting how the moisture in the air seemed to curl the ends of his dark hair around his ears and onto his forehead.  Cas swung his legs over into a sitting position and patted the space beside him. Dean sat down, darting in to lick Cas's neck. Cas shrugged Dean away, turning to capture his lips with his own instead. They kissed like fully clothed teenagers for a good 45 seconds before Dean's hand snaked over to stroke Cas’s hard-on and remind everyone that there was a wealth of nakedness to be cashed in on.

"Mmm." Cas slid off the bed, onto his knees and picked up his sex kit/ belt bag, unzipping it deftly and removing a blue latex glove. "Are you aware of any allergies, Mr. Winchester?"

"Uh uh."

"Do you have a family history of heart problems?" Cas snapped the band of a glove on his wrist.

"Real by the book, huh?"

Cas raised an eyebrow.  Dean coughed and let his eyes search for an invisible script.

"Uh. Well I uh- naked doctors have been known to give me tachycardia."

Cas rose to his feet, feigning stoic concern.

"Oh. In that case I'm going to have to ask you to lie down."

Dean complied, eyes boring into Cas's in curious scrutiny.

Cas straddled Dean's knees and licked up Dean's cock before suddenly sucking the whole thing into his mouth, then pulling off with a pop.

"And how long has it been since you last had your doctor suck you off?"

Dean swallowed. Lately he had been speed reading through the blow jobs to get to the full penetration. This was a mistake.  Cas played his part maddeningly well, his gaze cast downward as if he were reading medical survey questions clipboard.

"Uh. It's been too long." Dean whispered. Cas globbed more lube onto his palm. 'Far, far too long."

"I see. How does it feel when I put pressure...here." Cas eased his slippery, glove-free hand down Dean's shaft with remarkable patience.  Dean squeezed his eyes shut.

"That's good. Feels good, doc."

Cas gave a few more firm pumps, indulging himself as he leaned forward to ghost his tongue over Dean's right nipple. Dean twitched, breathing hard out of his nose. He warred with his impulse to break character and insist that Cas receive some return attention.  But Cas was as talented as any of Dean's past lovers at making pleasuring him appear to be personally gratifying.  Still, Dean couldn't deal much longer, with the pleasure or the guilt.  He reached a hand out and found it automatically twining through Cas's hair.

"You seem to be responding positively to localized treatment." Cas breathed the words onto Dean's chest.  Dean groaned and writhed with the absurdity of it all.

"Fuck your voice."

Dean rutted the back of his head deep into his pillow, letting his legs fall open, slightly. Cas immediately pulled his knees over Dean's prostrated form, and nudged his thighs farther apart so that he was now kneeling between Dean’s legs.

"I'm going to experiment with changing the location of administration.  Let me know if you experience any discomfort."

Cas greased up his gloved hand and slicked it over Dean's scrubbed-red taint. He nudged at Dean's entrance and teased it with the tip of his pointer finger.

"Yeah. That's ...good." Dean exhaled his encouragement as he settled his twitchy limbs into a more relaxed position.

"Just good?" Cas queried. "Any suggestions for improvement?". He slid the finger farther into Dean.

Dean tilted his head to the side and squinted one eye in contemplation, suddenly blinking hard when Cas slid a second slippery digit into the mix.

"I think this part gets a little- _ah, woo_ \- oversold in the fics."

"Should I stop?"

"No way. No. Don't stop. I need this to get to-" he raised his head off the pillow to glare at Cas's erection, "that.  I'm just not gonna- _hah_ \- like, write a sonnet about it."

Cas furrowed his brow for a moment, and leaned forward, which changed the angle of his digits, subtly.  Dean's hips reacted in a lightening quick S formation. Cas directed his voice towards Deans ear, letting his thumb brush against Dean's perineum each time he pressed forward.

_"Therefore I lie with him, and he with me,_   
_And in our bed by me he fingered be."_

Cas slid a third intruder into Dean, simultaneously sucking on a nipple.  He pulsed the wrist of his busy hand to gently create new space in a rhythm that alluded to a nice, indulgent fuck.  

Dean flexed and curled his toes, obviously more sensuously affected than he had been at the time of his tepid review.

"A fucking sonnet- _ah ah, shit_ \- you giant nerd." He panted for a moment. "This is good. Better. Better than good."

"Am I to believe you ultimately want me to fuck you with my dick?" Cas remained bent forward, giving Dean a penetrating stare through his eyelashes.  Dean gulped and bit his lip, trying to translate Cas’s monotone Ent-speak into English.

" _Jesus Christ_ , yes. Why? _Oh shit_. Does my insurance cover it? Do you need a fucking copay?"

"Hm mm." Cas started to suck a hickey into Dean's chest.  He worked his fingers around, feeling for Dean's prostate.

" _Whoa_. Cas. I need you. The real thing. Or this is gonna end up like Road Trip. Real soon."

Cas reluctantly pulled his hand out and bit down on the rim of his glove, ripping it up and off, then spitting it into the floor next to the bed.

"I do not understand that reference, but I get the sentiment behind it." He reached over and retrieved a condom, which he slid smoothly into.  He lubed himself generously. "You are positive that this is what you want?"

Dean plunked both feet on the mattress on either side of Cas.  He then grabbed a pillow and doubled it up under his ass.

"I want to come with a dick in my ass. " Dean ground out between clenched teeth. "That's how not straight I am. Chicks have fingers. I need your cock."

Apparently enough was said, because a moment later Cas had slid up against Dean's entrance, and was working himself gently in while matching pace with a somewhat sticky hand job.

Dean gasped like he had been shocked before throwing his head back in ecstasy. He didn't think he'd ever get into whips or bondage, but he liked his pleasure spiked with a little pain. He liked the juxtaposition between Cas's careful fucking and insistent tugging, and how each erogenous zone had its own unique spectrum of soft to stinging.

It was steel rods covered in duct tape and it was mutual attraction that had outlived several generations of fruit flies.  It was real life turned porn: bros to lovers. It was everything he'd miss the next time he fucked a girl, in the same way he was dimly aware that he currently had no clit to diddle or breasts to fondle.

 _“Jesus fucking Christ_."

These revelations were communicated to Cas via ropes and ropes of ejaculate, punched unceremoniously out of Dean's prostate just after Cas released the constant pressure he had been holding on Dean's cock in order to hoist his ass up a little higher.

Luckily, the surprise display and subsequent anal palpitations delighted Cas enough to pull him over just after his friend.

"That was Road Trip. You just fuckin' milked me.  Did you come?"  He raised his head to confirm as Cas gently extracted himself, and an obviously used condom.  “Good."   Dean let his head fall back onto the pillow and had a moment to appreciate that his unguarded post-coital declaration was topical, and not an accidental confession of his undying love, or anything else he'd have to backtrack out of later. Then his brain promptly shut down.


	15. Went upstairs to kiss her feller

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Afternoon delight pillow talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what possesses me, but I love dialogue so here you go.  
> So the NEXT chapter is the last chapter.  
> This has been really fantastic.   
> I'm signed up for the big bang and I can't decide whether to do Amish Cas or sci-fi future destiel. HELP ME!

The next morning came and went. Dean woke up after the sun peaked, on his side of a giant bed, not so much hungover as he was exhausted and dehydrated. When he looked around the room he found Cas sitting at the table in only a pair of white boxers, cradling a steaming mug.

"Coffee? Yesss."

"It is hot water." Cad clarified. "It is detoxifying."

"You are a 70 year old yoga lady in a hot guy's body." Dean groaned.

Cas smiled and took another quiet sip. Dean rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling trying to plan out his day. He was naked and half hard, but Cas seemed awake and functional. Was there a way to politely ask him to rewind for some wake-up sex?

"So Cas," Dean began, thoughtfully. "Do dudes pretty much always get it on every morning because of morning wood?"

"I don't know. I've never dated a 'dude'."

Dean sat bolt upright.

"What?"

"Did I stutter?"

Dean blinked. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, pulling a sheet into his lap, and rubbed the back of his neck. Cas continued serenely sipping.

"Eh. I mean the porn doesn't really cover this whole morning after."

Cas just watched him, curiously.

"Now you've got that hindsight..."

"As do you."

"Right so it's a question of- do you want an encore?"

Cas furrowed his brow. It hinted at his age. Dean flinched, and sat on the bed fidgeting his legs like a kid in church. Suddenly Cas's features opened as he figured out what Dean was asking.

"Dean, I'm aware that physical intimacy doesn't necessarily reflect affection in your case-" Cas paused, opened his mouth, then closed it.

Dean mouthed the words 'necessarily reflect affection' as he rolled his eyes up to consider their meaning.

"Um."

Cas let his head fall into his hand, and rubbed at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.

"I am not sure what I'm trying to say is the best idea."

"Just spit it out." Dean was curious now. Cas was diverting conversation away from his awkward angling for afternoon delight, and promising to drop some kind of bombshell instead.

"Uh. In short, regardless of your romantic intentions, I am physically available, indefinitely. For... Anything you wish. At nearly any time."

"Great! Get over here." Dean patted the bed next to him. Cas licked his lips as he stood and walked deliberately over to take the indicated seat. Dean turned and grabbed the older man's shoulders, ushering Cas fully onto the bed, propping him up against pillows on the headboard.

It was all at once old hat, and new territory. Shirtless heavy petting- they'd been there, done that. But they were sober, Las Vegas sunshine was streaming through the curtains and now that they'd made it "all the way" some kissing didn't just mean someone wanted to test their lips. Now kissing was a gateway drug and Dean was too strung-out, emotionally and even physically to worry about where this trip would land him.

He was also apparently extremely susceptible to the power of suggestion because as soon as Cas pulled Dean's hand forward and drizzled lube over his fingertips, Dean's fingers went exploring.

Cas's interior was warm, wet and soft. It wasn't a vagina, but it was still alive, fluttering and pulsing and sometimes pushing against him. His spelunking was undertaken parallel to a lot of kissing, biting, and groaning, which teamed up with adrenalin and fatigue to completely vanquish any misgivings he might have had about giving his first prostate exam. When Dean located said organ (gland?) he felt a surge of scholarly pride, which quickly devolved into an absolutely foolproof plan where Dean would continue to stimulate said prostate with his penis so that they would reach a mutual orgasm.

This is how Dean went from trying to finagle a '____ job' of some sort to ending up balls deep in a man whom he felt very strong, platonic emotions for, as well as an intense physical attraction.

After the fireworks, Cas practiced some kind of slow, relaxation breathing next to him, unconcerned that he was painted with his own seed. Dean's come-addled brain surged to life to ruin that.

"Why do I feel like this is the last time we should do that?."

Cas's nose breathing turned into a quick exhale.

"Whatever you say, Dean."

Dean's lip curled into a disapproving sneer.

"I'm saying that for you. It wouldn't be fair to you."

"And as I said, whatever you want."

"It's what you want too. I'm - I'm Dean Winchester. Let's not sugar coat it. Yeah I'm bisexual. But that doesn't mean I'm not gonna go home and bang my way through a bunch of boozy co-eds until one sticks."

"As long as that is what brings you joy." Cas answered, closing his eyes in meditation. "Your friendship means more to me than any guarantee of future physical relations. I am available if you change your mind."

"So I could go back and sleep with a couple chicks, then just call you up and say, 'hey,Cas, wanna bang?' and you'd be okay with that?"

"I have no stipulations. I am available."

Dean frowned.

"That's stupid."

"Oh?"

"We're not talking about you being a DD or a shoulder to cry on. We're talking about getting booty called by someone who is supposed to be your friend. "

“What part of ‘I understand that physical intimacy does not indicate romantic affection’ was unclear to you, Dean?”

“Uh, the part where I’m not just some heartless dick who uses people to get off?”

Cas rolled to his side and rested his ear on his prayerful hands, which served to mock the intimacy of the conversation, and let his voice trickle like tar into Dean’s right ear.

“Are the women you take home from the bars not people to you?”

“They’re aware of ...what the deal is.” Dean bit out through gritted teeth. “ I mean friends. I don’t do that to my friends.”

“You hold your friends in too high a regard to subject them to physical intimacy with you? Why? You know you’re desirable. You’re very comfortable with sexuality.”

“Stop calling it ‘physical intimacy’. It’s sex. Jesus Christ, Cas. And stop acting like I’m just some sex zombie. You think I don't want to figure out how to have an actual relationship? How to take everyone that means anything to me- “ Dean held out his left hand- “and amazing sex-” he extended his right hand- “ and somehow mash them into the same universe?” Dean clapped, quietly.

“I don’t get to have nice things, Cas. Or I didn’t. It’s ingrained in here.” Dean tapped his forehead. “Ever since mom died, Dad made sure. But I can BE a nice thing. For one night only. Any more than that and…” Dean squinted at the ceiling. “The Impala turns back into a pumpkin.”

Castiel tried to distract himself from the chasm of sadness that Dean had just unearthed.

“So you are Cinderella in this metaphor?”

“Depends. Did Cinderella really get around?”

“Perhaps. And the step-sisters were simply jealous of all the action she got, and all the cleaning and rags are a representative of slut shaming.”

“Heh. And the glass slipper is just a used condom. And the prince just fucks his way through all the maidens of the land because he can’t remember what the love of his life fucking looked like.”  Dean grinned at the bastardization of a wholesome fairy tale.

“He was left with nothing but a distinct impression that her pussy was the smallest.” Cas spoke with the hushed, magical voice of a professional storyteller.

“Which is shocking, considering she was kind of easy.” Dean guffawed.

Cas let his face fall for a moment to express his displeasure at the hypocritical judgement of Cinderella in the midst of her very own story.

“Is it possible that she allowed him to penetrate her anally?”

“Well he's a prince so it's totally possible. But then when he finds out that wasn't her tight pussy, is he relieved or disappointed?”

“She’s the love of his life. He’s relieved that his quest of repetitive and meaningless sex has come to an end. “

Dean stared at the ceiling, refusing to turn and see Cas's expression. It was why he let girls leave his apartment with little more than a smack on the ass. He didn't like to force them into spelling out the fact that, while a great lay, he was not their prince charming. He knew it.

Did Cas know? He had to know. He was older and wiser. Dean believed that wholeheartedly. So much so that he was concerned he'd make eye contact and see that Cas knew something he didn't.

Dean welcomed his buzzing cell phone on the night stand.

"What?" He barked into the receiver. Cas sat up, stretching and flexing, then inching his way to the end of the bed. Dean tried not to ogle. "Could I answer my phone if I were in jail?"

Cas stood and pointed to the shower. Dean nodded, listening to Sam yammer about how they were all supposed to be hanging out. He watched Cas saunter naked across the room.

Dean should have been spent. He wasn't a teenager. But he was still young. Whatever. He had another boner.

Dean reached out and snapped his fingers, still holding the phone to his ear. Cas turned and gave him a quizzical stare. Dean held up his pointer finger, silently asking Cas to wait.

"Yeah, yeah we'll see you at the buffet. Okay. It'll be an hour. Okay. Later." Dean hung up and slung the phone onto the bed. He popped to his feet with a jaunty grin, his newest erection waving unabashedly. "There's like a water crisis, right?" Cas cocked an eyebrow at him, but his lips perked into a grin.

"Come along."


	16. Do what you want with his body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean gets wise. Apparently you have to love yourself before you can go about loving someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it.   
> It's done!!  
> Let me know at the end if you liked the end.

Sam was sitting at the desk wondering about Dean again.  He and Cas were playing the what-happens-in-Vegas card pretty seriously, and it made Sam sad.  Maybe it was nothing.  Maybe they really just got super wasted and crashed at the Luxor.  There was always the slim possibility they snuck off to somewhere kinky and paid for sex.  Sam cringed.  It was unlikely.  Even if Cas convinced himself that the legality of prostitution lent it some dignity, Dean likely would have trouble with the idea.  He was more of a giver.

Sam shuddered as he considered the implications of knowing something so personal about his brother.  

Back to wondering if Dean and Cas hooked up in Vegas.

Sam groaned and let his head fall in his hands, trying to massage various images out of his mind.  The bell above the door gave a merry jingle.

“What’s up, you sick?  That thing going around starts with a headache.”  Dean breezed in from the cold, wrapped once again in Cas’s scarf.

“No just thinkin’.”  

“Eh.”  Dean grunted, shuffling through a pile of mail.  He sorted one useful envelope onto the counter, then dropped the rest of the pile in the trash.  “How’s Jess?”

“Good.  Jess is good.  Great.”  Sam blushed.  “How’s Cas?”  He threw back.  Dean gave his head a disgruntled shake.

“You would know as much as I do.  Last time I saw him was movie night.”

“Oh.”  Sam tried to look innocent. “I know.  But you guys text.  And stuff.”

Dean glared at Sam through his eyelashes, then huffed into the office where he unwound the scarf from his neck and tossed it onto the counter.  His coat followed.  He checked the monitor and peered through the window at the rest of the gym.  Other than some older ladies on the ellipticals and a pilates class, the place was empty.

“So were you ‘just thinking’ about Jess?”  Dean emerged from the office and traversed into Sam’s space, lowering his voice as he got closer.  Sam only had a moment to ponder the teasing glint in his eye. “‘Cause let me warn you, she’s read all that same fiction crap as you, so the minute you ask if you can put something in her ass, she’s gonna expect it to go both ways.”  

“What?!  Oh my God, Dean.”  Sam sputtered.  Dean threw back his head and laughed.  “It’s not even -”  Sam’s eyes glazed over for a moment as he was sucked into Dean’s potentially mortifying hypothetical.  “Fuck you.”  Sam shook it off.  “So what if she did, anyway?”  Sam retaliated, his liberal backbone stiffening against the brotherly abuse.  “It’s kind of ironic that you’re trying to distract me from Cas by bringing up ass play.  Right?”

It was Dean’s turn to blush.

“Right, Dean?”  Dean turned on his heel and marched back into the office with contrived purpose.  Sam raised his voice to follow through the open door.  “I’m right, aren’t I?  Say absolutely nothing if I’m right.”  They shared a moment of silence in which Sam’s brain nearly exploded as it tried to sort through newly confirmed information, and Dean just started at Cas’s scarf like it was the cause of all his problems.  He finally turned away from the knitted piece and walked out of the office, this time at a slower pace and his head hung.

Dean swallowed, but Sam beat him to breaking the silence.

“Look, I’m really sorry, Dean.”

“Sorry?”

“Well yeah.”  Sam spun his chair around to face Dean and clasped his hands together, shrugging his shoulders and hunching forward a bit.  “I mean, I know you better than anyone and I know you bend over backwards for the people you're close to and I know you really like Cas so… I’m sorry whatever you did-” Sam considered his words. “I mean,  you put yourself out there and judging by all this business-as-usual, he didn’t want to change things.  So that sucks.  I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.”  Dean grabbed his eyes in a classic  it’s-just-allergies, which prompted Sam to spin away for a moment to give the guy his space.  “Well.”  Dean searched high and low for a distraction, but the Lord was not feeling merciful. “Changes are-” his voice caught like bad tracking in the midst of this ridiculous VHS chick flick that was suddenly his life- “not always the best idea.  I get it.”

He made his final retreat back to the office.  He plopped into the chair and pulled up a spreadsheet.  He opened a tab for twitter.  He scanned his messages and reviewed the blog post on the average rate of protein absorption.  He tried not to look at Cas’s scarf as it menacingly touched every useful item on his desktop, a cruel metaphor for the real Cas (the desktop being Dean’s life).  

It stung.  It fucking really stung that his own brother had so much faith in him as human being that he believed deep down that Dean had asked Cas for something more, and been rejected.  Yes, Dean was also reeling a little at the fact that Sam was SO OVERLY COMFORTABLE with the confirmation that Dean was maybe partly gay.  But Sam was always a genius.  Except for this.  Sam’s genius brain couldn’t fathom a world where Dean would sleep with Cas, but not want to be with Cas.  But Cas said he understood that sex didn’t equal affection.  But he qualified that with a clear “for Dean”.  He said their friendship was “more important”.  More important than what?  Having no friendship at all, or actually having a romantic relationship?  Dean closed all his browser windows, then immediately wanted to look at them again, nearly growling as he waited for his email to reload.  He jittered his leg.  He executed a deep nose sigh, then pulled out his phone.

Dean: What does physical intimacy mean to you?

He tapped his knee as he waited for a response, convinced that Cas was in the midst of trying to shock some other poor schmuck back to life and wouldn’t answer for hours.  His phone buzzed.

Cas: It equals affection.

Dean’s jaw flexed.

Dean: So why agree to be booty call?

Cas: So far it’s unconditional affection.

Dean: You have this affection for lots of people?

Cas: I am not polyamorous.

Dean googled.  He read through the definition of polyamory.  He gulped.

Dean: What do I have to do to fix this?

Dean almost laughed aloud as he realized what he was asking, and how easily it could be misconstrued  But Cas was a singular person, and Dean didn’t doubt that if there were cliffsnotes on how to get him to hate you, he’d provide them.

Cas: You must kick 7 puppies, demean 2 female and 1 male Wal-Mart employees and deny a transgender gym member access to the proper locker room.

Dean laughed despite himself.

Cas: Also, shut up, Dean.

It was a playful end to a potentially dark conversation, and once again Cas had managed to save Dean from himself.  Dean found himself feeling verklempt for what must have been the fifth time in and hour.  He rubbed his eyes some more, and opened yet another program on the computer.  He would fix this.

……………………………………….

“I just thought it was really interesting how Omegas were the ruling gender because it felt like they were trying to explore whether a female is worth more or less based on her willingness or ability to conceive…. oh oh oh, right… uh huh.”

“Knock, knock.”  Dean interrupted, tapping on the doorframe.

“Ooo! I gotta go.  Just got a visitor!”  Becky slammed down the receiver of her desk phone and gave Dean a winning smile.  Somewhere in the background her chat program brrrringed angrily.  “Dean!  What can I do for you?  Sam hasn’t fallen off of any more ladders, right?”  She wrung her hands with sudden concern.

“No no.”  Dean held his palms up to calm her.  “Nothing like that.  I just want to ask you a few questions, if you’ve got a minute.”

“Of course!  Nobody here but us chickens.  And by chickens I mean ‘gay porn’ and scholarly articles.”  She giggled awkwardly.

“Right.  Well first I want to say ‘thank you’ to you.  Sam, uh, took this class with all the freaky reading assignments, and I ended up getting kinda into them and, uh… made some changes that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.”

Becky clutched her hands over her heart.

“With the sex hair guy?  Please say it was the sex hair guy.  Oh I bet you did.  I think the Pope would ‘make changes’ for that guy.  Mmm.  Definitely a priest.”  Her eyes glazed over as she imagined Dean with a collar.

“Yeah. I gave him some sex hair for you.”  Dean took another step in and sat in a visitor chair.  “Here’s the thing. I haven’t transitioned into a fully functioning bi person yet.”

Becky frowned.

“So you’re not out?”  

“I’m not even in.  I got in and then I jumped back out.  There’s no more sex hair.  Well there is, but it’s not my fault”  Dean narrowed his eyes at his imaginary competition, or the elusive elves that kept Cas’s hair artfully disheveled at all times.

“And you’re blaming me?!” Becky’s voice rose an octave in alarm.

“No.  No way.  I’m looking to get back in.  Or out.  Whatever.  I want to be myself-” he waved his hand over his heart and looked to the side as he chose his words- “without giving a fuck.”

“Hello pride parade tee-shirt.”  She jotted the words onto a yellow sticky note.  Dean smiled politely.  There was silence.

“So, what exactly can I do for you?”

Dean leaned back in his chair and rested his elbows on the armrests, steepling his fingers, then spreading them wide.

“Assign me some reading, I guess.  Something meaningful maybe?  I dunno.  I read about a bunch of sex and I went out and had the sex.  You got any about being a decent person?  Or something that ends happy?”

Becky’s normally gooey heart melted a little bit more as she felt the weight of Dean’s earnest trust.  

“Give me your email address and I’ll send you some links.  But I’d also advise searching in the General Audience or Teen and Up ratings.  It seems like you’ve skipped a few of the PG steps in your relationship.”

Dean leaned forward, nodding slightly, and scrawled his email address onto another sticky note.

“Thanks, Doc.  PhD?  Does that make you a doc?  Anyway, I got one other question.  Have you ever done paintball?”

………………………………………………..

Garth’s Paintball Emporium was a small, dusty field, ringed by a well-kept forest.  It was Memorial Day weekend and Dean had gone so far as to close the gym in order to get all of his friends and family there at the same time.

The three and a half months between the inception of paintball and the actual event had served him well.  Dean had gotten back on a good workout schedule, hadn’t gone to any bars, was eating the sprouts that he dutifully grew in a mason jar in his kitchen, and had even noticed a whiff of something syrupy sweet in his own BO.  It was a time for self-reflection, wholesome movie nights,brotherly bonding, and of course, porn.  It seemed that many of the mental roadblocks he encountered when trying to work himself up to a monogamous relationship could be worked out by his right hand.  As well as his left.  And a couple of toys.  He wasn’t exactly a new man, but he did feel closer to the guy everyone else seemed to be looking at.

While he had no trouble ceasing to take random girls home for a quick tumble, he was having difficulties resisting Cas in the many platonic social situations they planned together.  Sam had grumpily accused them of eye-fucking more than once, and neither of them had argued the charge.  Dean did feel a bit guilty watching Sam shoot eye-daggers at Cas behind his back, seemingly still under the impression that Cas was the roadblock to Dean’s happily ever after.  But Dean wasn’t a saint, he was just a guy trying to get his act together, so he let Sam and his misguided prejudice be.

Dean smiled at his hodgepodge group of friends as they began to gather around the entrance, donning vests and other protective gear.  So far the group was made up of Cas, Sam, Jess, Bobby (ready to skin anyone who brought up his ‘heart thing’ with his favorite hunting knife) Jo, Lisa, Lisa’s son Ben, Victor, Jo’s friend (and occasional tutor) Kevin and a couple of EMT folks that Cas asked along - Meg and a pretty woman named Jody.  Charlie was conspicuously absent due to a “family emergency,”  which translated “LARPing” and Dean was planning on giving her a hard time about the snub later.

Dean watched Cas with his friends, and tamped down his jealousy as the man patiently helped the women find the proper gear.  Just because Cas apparently didn’t think that way about Dean didn’t mean Dean could just turn his natural reactions off.  He shook it off, as he hoped it would all be resolved shortly.

“Sam!  Jess! Hi!  Hi Dean!”  Becky’s voice rang out as she full-out ran from the parking lot.  Sam stood up straight with a shocked expression, and Jess giggled at the terror in his eyes.

“Doctor Rosen, what are you doing here?”

“Dean invited me!  Isn’t that nice?  Everyone always thinks of me as ‘that weirdo professor’.  No one ever asks me to do normal, fun stuff, so I think this is just the sweetest!.”  She hopped over to Dean and gave him a quick squeeze.  Dean gave Sam a beaming smile, just to be a dick.  Jess laughed out loud.

“Nice to see you again, Becky.”  Cas added, politely.

“You too, sex hair!”  Becky chirped back. “Time for me to get suited up!”  With that she was off harassing the gangly, baby-faced man named Garth about getting the thickest jacket and the clearest face mask.

“Alright!”  Dean called the attention to himself when he felt that everyone was together enough to listen.  “We’re gonna choose teams.  I’ll be a captain and Sam can be a captain.  We get two choices a turn and I go first.  I choose Cas and Becky.”  Cas and Becky stepped over to stand behind Dean as if his hurried statement were the most normal thing in the world.  Sam looked absolutely perplexed, but Dean waved his arm at him impatiently.

“I choose Jess and Bobby."

“You’re going down, Jam!”  Becky yelled.  Sam winced.

“It’s our ship name.”  Jess whispered.  Sam’s face brightened at that.

“Alright I’m taking Lisa and Ben.”

“Victor and Jo.”

“About fucking time!”  Jo yelled, glaring at both captains.  Lisa and Victor shook their fists at each other in mock rivalry.

The rest of the group got sorted until they realized the teams were uneven, and invited the owner Garth to play along as a member of Sam’s team.   They decided to play capture the flag and agreed on a 30 minute cease-fire for forest exploration and flag hiding, after which Garth would sound an airhorn and the shoot-out would begin.

Dean broke his team up into offense and defense, surprising everyone by taking Cas, Meg, Becky and the flag with him and leaving Lisa, Ben, and Jody with the dangerous task of procuring the other team’s flag.

“Are you sure about this strategy?”  Cas asked, gravely.

“It’s all fun and games, Cas.”  Dean answered lightly and clapped his friend on the shoulder.  “C’mon follow me.”

If it seemed to anyone like Dean had been there before and knew exactly where he was going, it was because he had and he did.  He stationed Meg in a gully that looked like nothing more than a slight bump that could never conceal a nasty little sniper.  Meg fist-bumped her companions to express her glee at the position.  They bid her adieu as Dean moved them deeper into the woods where there was a genuine hunters blind, up in a tree.  He pointed at the ladder.

“Up you go, Doc.”

Becky gave him a look of concern.

“Trust me.  It’ll be worth it.”

She dutifully climbed the ladder without a word of complaint.  Cas raised an eyebrow at Dean, whose plans were clearly premeditated, but difficult to interpret.

“C’mon big guy.  You and I go here.”  Dean led Cas down to a foxhole just down the slope, under the protection of Becky’s tree stand.  They sat with their backs towards the enemy, leaning into the wall of brush and leaves that Garth had probably very lovingly assembled.  The forest was peaceful until the sound of the air horn pierced through the chatter of songbirds.  It was time.

………………………………………………..

Dean turned to his friend and flipped up his facemask.  Cas tilted his head as Dean reached over and pulled his friend’s mask right off.  After that he opened with a kiss, presumably for good luck. Because Cas is who he would kiss for good luck and therein lay the problem.

When he pulled back Cas blinked away from a look of supreme satisfaction into something more taken aback. Dean was dismayed that his thoughts just didn't beam over through his skilled tonguing. He'd have to speak. He cleared his throat.

"Hey, I just wanted to tell you that I was wrong. Our thing shouldn't be a one time thing. Uh, if you don't want it to."  Dean kept his voice low as they waited to hear the first crackle of paint-filled artillery, but all was quiet.

"Oh. What should it be?"

"Well more kissing, for one. And I- uh- I'm in the middle of a pretty serious juice fast.  I liked the give and take of before, so, more of that. Vegas.  But at home.”

"I am also on day three of a liquid fiber cleanse."  Never had Cas touted one of his healthful habits with so much smulder.

Dean straddled him with a huffed laugh, and Cas welcomed him into his lap, groaning when Dean paused nipping at his lips to away to peer over the barrier.  All was quiet, so he dove back down into Cas’s embrace.  He’d had trouble filling his kissing quota back when he was getting regular play, but after giving up the strange he was even more desperate to taste another person.  Somewhere, up in the trees, Becky was hyperventilating.

"Did you want to do more than this?”  They were both panting, and Cas’s eyelids were heavy.

“Yes.  I mean no.”  Dean licked Cas’s neck.  “I'd prefer not to get shot with your fingers in my ass."

“Whoa, what the fuck?”  Sam’s voice rang out over their heads, followed by a sharp smack.  “Jesus, I’m hit.”  He fell to ground in obedience to the rules as Becky blew on her muzzle and recocked her gun.  No one was gonna disturb her babies if she had anything to do about it.  Dean and Cas paid them no mind.

"Tell me what to do."  Cas looked to Dean for direction, and Dean suddenly had dust in his eyes.

"Cas I- “  He rubbed his eyes and scratched behind his ear. “I want you to tell me what you want to do.  I want you to stop worrying you'll scare me off. We're friends. We'll always be friends. But it's bigger than that. You saved my life. I'm not saying I owe you I'm saying we're connected. So what do you want?"

"What are my options?" He asked slowly.  Dean released a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, with a bit of exasperation.

“Whoa! Aw, are you guys seriously-”  Another splat.  “Fucking shit.”  Jess laid down next to her boyfriend.  “Hi Sam.”  

“Shhh…”  He hissed.  “I’m listening.”

Dean cleared his throat, stubbornly blocking his audience out of his thoughts.

"Sky's the limit. We could be exclusive. We could march in a parade. I could lose my apartment and we could let a bunch of foster kids destroy your house and try to murder us in our sleep.  You could tell people I'm your roommate or I could wear a frilly apron and build you a white picket fence." Cas's eyes darkened at this suggestion. "We could skip down the sidewalk holding hands. I mean- I wouldn't love that, but I'd deal. Are you into that? Just tell me. It's all cool. Uh, Indefinitely.  Unconditionally.  You're not… Alone.”

He gulped. Cas looked at him in awe.

"No more messing with each other. We can do this shit like grown-ups.  I can.  I can now."

“So how would grown-up Dean classify our relationship?”  Cas began to smirk.

“PSHHhh I thought you didn't like labels.”

“Humor me.”

“Well we’re two meat-head burger lovers who secretly went on juice fasts for each other.  That’s pretty much 'love', right?"

Dean looked sheepish and Cas looked as if he were about to cry.

Instead it was Becky who released a howl as she was pegged in the ankle by a neon green splat.

"Noooo! Not fair! I was trying to get my phone out. What was that again? Two burger loving queers who go on juice fasts is pretty much love? Was that it? Fucking shit I should have been recording this."

"Becky, you're dead. Shut up."  Bobby announced, gruffly.

"Was that what he said? Dammit!"

“I’ve got it recorded.” Sam piped up.

“OMG, Sam. Seriously?”  Jess sounded affronted for the sake of Dean.

Dean meanwhile unwound himself from Cas’s embrace and whipped his gun up to shoot at Bobby, who hoofed it behind a tree with a comical “oomf”.  Cas scrambled to locate his face mask, and Dean mentally concurred with that priority.  He was looking forward to getting real up close and personal with that face in the near future, and unsightly welts wouldn’t do.

“Shit.  Come out, come out, old man.”  

Bobby grunted with anger at the crack about his age, and took retaliatory aim at Cas.  Dean gasped and lurched forward to intercept the shot, but he was too late.  Cas was hit in the chest with a thunk, hot pink paint splashing off of his vest and spattering the side of Dean’s face.  Cas went limp.

“Noooooo!”  Dean shouted.  He stood and launched a volley of bullets at Bobby, managing to mark the man on both sides of the tree, which was only about 10 inches wide and really did a very poor job of hiding him.  Bobby fell to his knees, playfully.

“I’m hit.”

“Cas!”  Dean straddled his friend, this time theatrically, grabbing his collar and shaking him until he cracked a smile, though he kept his eyes shut.  “Cas!  Come back to me man!”  Dean pushed his hands over the point of contact, as if putting pressure on a wound.  His hands smeared through the pink paint.  “Not like this!  It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”  Dean wailed.  Becky giggled.

“For once and for all, Miss Rosen, you are goddamn dead.”  Bobby croaked from the ground.

“Kiss him!”  Jess suggested, without sitting up or opening her eyes.

“Enough from peanut gallery!”  Dean laughed.  He took a breath and got back into character, brushing a hand down Cas’s cheek and smearing his friend with wet paint.  “Cas, you’re gone and I never got a chance to tell you how I really feel.”

“And how’s that?” Sam muttered from his place in the leaves.

“I love you, man.”  Dean mock-cried over his friend, pounding his fist a little roughly into Cas’s chest, burying his fake-tearful face in the crook of his other arm.  Cas coughed a little.  Leaves crackled behind Sam and Jess’s fake-dead bodies.  Dean leveled his weapon without even looking up, and volleyed a few rounds into the woods.

“Shit.” Victor hissed.  “Nice move turning my soft spot for gay love against me.”

“Gay whaaa?”  Jo arrived at the hilltop out of breath.  Dean pegged her in the thigh with bright yellow.  She took a knee involuntarily.  “You rat fucking bastard.”  She came back from her wince to see the  touching scene laid out before her.  “Holy shit are they kissing?”

Dean leaned forward and cradled Cas’s head in his hands.  He tilted his head down slowly, feeling Becky and Jo’s eyes boring into them from different angles.  He licked Cas’s lips lightly, then pressed up against them, finally blowing a raspberry on Cas’s mouth.  Cas laughed.  Dean laughed.  Suddenly they were giggling into each other’s mouths, with only the brushing of their noses providing skin to skin contact.

“Hey guys!  We got their flag!”  Ben and Lisa crested the hill, and everyone took that as a cue to sit up and not play dead any longer.

“Great work, man!”

“Yeah well everyone was afraid to shoot a kid!”  Ben announced, triumphantly.

Bobby nailed Ben in the chest on principle.  Lisa frowned for a moment, but the shot didn’t seem to phase the kid, so instead she burst into laughter.

“Not real sportsman-like, Bobby.” Jo criticized.

“Kid’s gotta get the full experience.”  Bobby grumbled.

“Hey guys.”  Garth trudged onto their little knoll, decorated with every color paint.  “Whew, you kids are a fun bunch. That was some intense shooting.”

Ben and Lisa high-fived.

“So I really had a nice time with y’all today.”  Garth continued.  “I host a karaoke night down at the Full Moon Cafe tonight.  It’d be another rip-roarin good time if y’all wanted to come out.”

Dean looked at Cas, questioningly.  Cas smiled, then grimaced.

“Both of my legs are asleep.”  

Dean rolled his eyes and removed his weight from his friend.

“Dean, would you like to go to the Full Moon Cafe with me this evening?”  Cas struggled to sit up, cringing at the tingles chasing up and down his legs.

“I’d love to Cas.”  Everyone grinned down at the two men, somewhat awkwardly.

“Us too!” Becky yelled down from her tree.  “We’ll be there, Garth.  What time?”

“Starts at eight.  Now I better go find the rest of your friends and let them know they’re not dead anymore.  Follow me, campers.”

Jo and Bobby each seemed to visually question Garth’s sanity, but they all followed nonetheless as Garth led them through the forest to wake up the less fortunate.

Dean offered Cas his hand and pulled him off the ground, not letting go when Cas was finally upright.

“So, uh, what’re your feelings on PDA?”

“Is that a musical group?  I do not know any of their songs.”

“Fuck you, old man.”  Dean dragged Cas into his personal space, licking his mouth open until he could properly suck on Cas’s tongue.  Cas reciprocated, pulling at the velcro of Dean’s vest in an attempt to reach under his shirt and find skin.

“I believe,”  Cas huffed into Dean’s mouth.  “my feelings are that it should not be indulged in unless we can very easily transition it into a more private display of affection.”

“You jerk.”  Dean shoved Cas back, playfully.  “You knew PDA wasn’t a band.”

“You called me ‘old man’ again.”  Cas pouted.

“C’mon, I need a shower before tonight.”  Dean trudged down the hill.

“Isn’t there some kind of water crisis?”  Cas teased, keeping pace behind him.  Dean stopped, and turned to flash Cas a salacious grin.

“You know what?  I think there is.”

……………………………………….

 

**ROLL CREDITS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

 

**The Full Moon Cafe is a dive bar with white icicle lights hanging around the karaoke stage, and various really poorly conceived taxidermy pieces mounted crookedly on the walls.  The gang’s all there in varying states of drunkenness, and Bobby doesn’t look super amused at Jo’s antics, being that she’s supposed to train the next morning.  Dean’s happy drunk, which is a new thing for him, and took considerably less booze than it usually took for him to be depressed drunk.  Cas has a perma-smile and Sam is half-heartedly trying to convince Jess not to publicly give him a lap dance.  Garth is just finishing up a heartfelt rendition of Dolly Parton’s “Nine to Five”, and the deafening applause is well-deserved.**

**“And next up we have- well it just says ‘the dudes’, singing Lady Gaga’s “Do What U Want.”**

**Jess, Jo, and Charlie (who didn’t stop to change out of her Queen of Moondor garb) whoop with glee and begin pushing Dean, Sam and Cas to the stage.  The men have no room to protest, as the girls are adamant that ‘the dudes’ perform, and insist that Garth stay trapped up on the stage as well.  Garth shrugs and hands out more mics. as the song begins.**

 

**Garth starts in on the first verse as the rest of the dudes get their bearings and try to figure out if they actually know the song that their singing.**

_ I feel good, I walk alone _

_ But then I trip over myself and I fall _

_ I, I stand up, and then I'm okay _

_ But then you print some shit _

_ That makes me wanna scream _

**Miraculously, Sam, Cas and Dean are all familiar with this particular Gaga classic, and begin to sing and pantomime the pre-chorus with vigor.**

_ So do what you want _

_ What you want with my body _

_ Do what you want _

_ Don't stop, let's party _

_ Do what you want _

_ What you want with my body _

_ Do what you want _

_ What you want with my body _

** Sam is encouraged by his cheerleading squad of one, known as Jess, and pushes forward to solo, lunging slightly and pulsing his hips to the beat while he points his finger at the audience, accusingly, then confusingly at the ceiling. **

__Write what you want  
Say what you want 'bout me  
If you’re wondering  
Know that I'm not sorry  
Do what you want  
What you want with my body  
What you want with my body

** Cas has been gleefully watching Dean sing and dance with zero reservation.  He pushes his boyfriend out into the spotlight, eager and proud to show off the shining specimen of a man.  Dean complies, nudging Sam out of the way and almost coherently indicating the specified bodily organs as he keeps the beat with a one-footed stomp. **

  _You can't have my heart_

_ And you won't use my mind but _

_ Do what you want (with my body) _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ You can't stop my voice cause _

_ You don't own my life but _

_ Do what you want (with my body) _

_ Do what you want (with my body) _

** Becky whoops for joy, somewhat to the chagrin of her quiet boyfriend, Chuck.  Jo, Jess and Charlie cheer as well, though their plan at utter humiliation is backfiring, and the dudes are making it all look like way too much fun.  The girls muscle onto the stage. **

** Jo and Charlie grab mics from Garth and Sam and go back to back while Jess takes the part of dancer and gyrates in the center. **

 

_ Early morning, longer nights _

_ Tom Ford, private flights _

_ Crazy schedule, fast life _

_ I wouldn't trade it in _

_ 'Cause it's our life (let's slow it down...) _

_ I could be the drink in your cup _

_ I could be the green in your blunt _

_ Your pusher man, yeah, I got what you want _

_ You wanna escape all of the crazy shit _

_ You're the Marilyn, I'm the president _

_ And I'd love to hear you say, girl _

 

** All the performers gather together in a weird mass of both good fun and sensuality as Winchesters let their hands wander over their significant others while Charlie and Jo guffaw at the outlandishness of it all and decide the best course of action would be attempting to twerk.  Garth observes this attempt, thoughtfully. **

 

_ Do what I want _

_ Do what I want with your body _

_ Do what I want _

_ Do what I want with your body _

_ Back of the club, taking shots, getting naughty _

_ No invitations, it's a private party _

_ Do what I want _

_ Do what I want with your body _

_ Do what I want _

_ Do what I want with your body _

_ Yeah, we taking these haters and we roughing 'em up _

_ And we laying the club like we don't give a fuck _

 

** Oh wait, did I say ‘roll credits’?  Yes.  How about some of those. **

 

** Cast: **

** *The Cast of the show Supernatural*  
(Thank you for giving your bodies over for the entertainment of the fangirling masses) **

 

_ You can't have my heart _

_ And you won't use my mind but _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ You can't stop my voice cause _

_ You don't own my life but _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

 

** Crew: **

** I suppose that’d be me, CaptainMercy42 **

** (Thank you for reading!  And thank you, cast for being so vibrant and easy to write) **

 

_ Sometimes I'm scared I suppose _

_ If you ever let me go _

_ I would fall apart _

_ If you break my heart _

_ So just take my body _

_ And don't stop the party _

** Special thanks: (in no particular order) **

** Marie L. **

** Mycoulour **

** Coplins **

** Naniquena **

** Staunchlyblue **

** MaeAloril **

** Destielschild **

** and anyone else who has commented and/or subscribed to this particular piece of fiction.  You are darling and brave people who take-on WIP’s with little promise of an ending, and actually take moments out of your days to comment.  It’s a real honor to have finished this for you! **

_ You can’t have my heart (help me now) _

_ And you won't use my mind but _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ You can't stop my voice cause _

_ You don't own my life but _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

**Also, special thanks to anyone else who likes to ponder whether fanfic really means something more to people than just an outlet for porn and cheesy hormonal romance.  It pretty much has to, right?  It surely means something to the writers, and to the readers and the commenters, or the silent kudosers, and even to the actors, whom we are playing dirty paper dolls with in a very public forum.  Thanks for exploring with me.  You are my people.**  

_ Do what you want with me _

_ What you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with me _

_ What you want with my body (world) _

_ Do what you want with me _

_ What you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with me _

_ What you want with my body _

** Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak (who is not, for the record, a 70 year old female philanthropist) make-out like horny teens on the karaoke stage of the Full Moon Cafe in full view of their family and friends.  They are very quickly bundled into a cab, ‘cause Bobby ain’t stupid.  He also ain’t prejudice, but that doesn’t mean he wants to watch. **

_ World, help me now _

_ What you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ Do what you want with my body _

_ What you want with my body _

 


End file.
